Sunshine |
  • UK / USA • 2007 • 107m •   • Directed by: Danny Boyle. • Starring: Cliff Curtis, Chipo Chung, Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rose Byrne, Benedict Wong, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Mark Strong, Paloma Baeza, Archie Macdonald, Sylvie Macdonald. • Music by: John Murphy.      50 years into the future, the Sun begins to die, and Earth is dying as a result. A team of astronauts are sent to revive the Sun - but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team are sent to finish the mission as they are Earth's last hope.
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Review:
The Logic (or lack thereof): Remember it's science fiction not logic fiction, so I will accept only nonsense like the ships being in the suns orbit with just some shield protecting them. But: 1. Why do so many people have to go there and back? 2. Bombs are "payload"? Why not "cargo" or "bomb"? Makes you wonder which billionaire was kind enough to PAY for saving mankind. 3. The so-called Scientists are a chaotic bunch. 4. The ship's computer is "Ikarus" - oh how "clever", that is for half-schooled dimwits - remember that Ikarus' wings melted in the sun. By that logic you could call the ship "Challenger", "Solar 13", "Hindenburg" etc. 5. Who was the mystery man? Suddenly after 90 minutes it's a mystery tale? That was under-explained and only construed in order to have the plot go on. 6. There is no computing of the course correction - just one hysterical guy with a calculator - well it's just a setup for having to find the 1st mission. 7. The first ships inside is entirely covered in dust. They say "dust is 85% skin". Well, then let's calculate (once again...) that thick layer of dust: 0.5 kg skin per year - that's about 5 kg per year for the entire crew. So either no one was wiping the floors for 10 years or they still shed skin long after they were dead. Was it a crew of 10.000 people? The secret is never revealed. 8. The light takes 8 minutes to the Earth: Our hero's sister watches his message (which he sent long ago) of what's to be seen if the mission was successful. Then she positions herself JUST IN TIME when the sun "lights up". Come on! There is still logic though: in one scene the wrists are slashed the correct way (that is one of the few "Boyle" moments of realism).
Political Correctness: 1. A multi-cultural crew and they also save a dying star. How sweet it is. 2. Only Caucasians fight amongst themselves but survive the longest. Is that P.C.? 3. No people of African origin among the crew. Very non-P.C.
Sci Fi Clichés galore: 1. There's oxygen for some but not all of them. 2. 3 guys on a forced spacewalk but only one space suit. 3. Going to search the lost Mission is a terrible risk but of course through absolute coincidence they eventually HAVE to do that. 4. The "repair in space" scene with the expected self-sacrifice of one. 5. There is a countdown scene. They are running out of oxygen - yet they move around in cathedral-sized surroundings. If they were so short of oxygen (all of a sudden and conveniently there are no plants) why not use oxygen masks and SAVE some. Remember: It's the ecosphere, stupid! Do I have to spell it for you? Those golden space suits are a sight to behold. A mix of R2D2 and the bestworst 1950s Sci-Fi-Flicks thrown together. No one laughed which I found hard to understand. So at least once I was surprised in this movie.
We also have an interesting crew of selected scientists (for a mission so important): There's an aloof, Jesus-type Hippie, who must impress somebody. Otherwise he wouldn't be in movies. There's an American jock who is always in an immature fight usually with the only other Caucasian male aboard. It's like a bad 1980s High School movie. There's a pouting 20-something girl - so she left earth when she was a teenager. A scientist teenager, mind you. There's a Japanese commander (very P.C.) with broken English (fffantastic to have a non native speaker as your leader when you're dealing with the existence of Earth) There's a hysterical Chinese fellow who's calculating skills are flawed but who nevertheless doesn't bother any of the surely impressive COMPUTERS on board to do life-or-death course corrections. All in all they are a great representation of mankind to save itself: Fighting like teenagers but since the audience will be mostly teenage I get the point. Well, like teenagers no one really decides - they rather argue aimlessly and their "decisions" are usually coming from facts outside their own making.
I have no idea about the ending & by that time I didn't care. Nothing could save this oeuvre in the last 5 minutes. There is no empathy that you could build during the course of the film. If you take a flawed, naive film like "Silent Running": at least you could feel anything about that guy and his Huey and Dewey computers hobbling around. But if you like "Event Horizon" you will surely like this film.
So this is a "solid" Sci-Fi-Film? First of all solid seems to mean clichéd and repetitive. Not so, since real Sci-Fi it offers endless - virtually endless possibilities. If you have the time read Stanislaw Lem, Isaac Asimov, etc. Why writers and directors never use that endless realm of ideas or are prevented from doing so is beyond me.
This instead is run of the mill "Science Fiction" (Hollywood's understanding thereof, mind you). If I get the point it is trying to make, then this is inept pretentiousness at its worst. You get what you expect. Your Popcorn is fresher than the ideas in this movie.
I've stopped expecting to be impressed or entertained by movies as they were intended. Instead I view them as (involuntary) comedy. Still after a while I just got angry and started counting the inconsistencies and clichés among the obligatory hoopla, explosions and deafening sound. A lot could be said about current cinema playing to the masses of naive, dumbed down movie-goers in the hope of creating a blockbuster.
Review by Mikelito from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database