Danny Boyle doesn’t make bad movies and never makes the same movie twice. We’ve seen his last three efforts divide themselves between family films, horror films and whatever the heck you want to call Trainspotting. When he announced he would be tackling science fiction fans had high expectations. Have they been met? Sunshine comes off as an odd mixture of Event Horizon, and 2001 (both films I like a lot). And Sunshine is never anything less than interesting. But it also falls short of delivering on the genre thrills it promises at the same time it threatens to collapse under its own philosophic weight. Ultimately this is a film that hinges on whether the ending works – for me it didn’t quite get where it was going even if the journey was worth taking.
Comparisons to Ray Bradbury's Golden Apples of the Sun are apt here not only because of the similarities in plotting and situation but perhaps more importantly because Boyle comes very close to the same sort of galactic poetry in his visuals that Bradbury achieved in words. Whether this is an apocalyptic thriller, or a stylistic dark sci fi there's no doubt it is a wonderful film that fans of other visionary works like The Fountain should be aware of. And the performances here are outstanding. An early attempt at comedy, Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise, was good but uneven but his work has done nothing but grow in maturity. I can't wait to see Slumdog Millionaires.
I’m really excited about the extras here. Not only do we get a Boyle commentary but also a scientific commentary by University of Manchester‘s Dr. Brian Cox along with an alternate ending, web production diaries, deleted scenes with optional commentary and 2 short films with intro by Boyle.
"Danny Boyle doesn’t make bad movies"
You haven't seen "The Beach" then. Evil farmers take away a hut from a group of yupies, Di Caprio was in it i think.
This is a fantastic movie, I found the visuals absolutely stunning. This is the kind of film that should fill up an imax screen (one can dream right :P)
Sunshine is, unfortunately, everything that's wrong with science fiction movies over the last ... well, multiple decades: scifi means action thriller with science-fictiony effects and props and settings. While Sunshine is far from the worst example of this, the discontinuity between the first 3/4ters and last highlights the problem. Until everything took a left turn in the last half hour, Sunshine was in competition with The Fountain to be this generation's 2001. Tension, maturity, interpersonal and technical problems solved (or not) rationally, a real sense of place... and then some psycho slasher jumps in and pisses all over it.
DJensen, great review. Better than anything I could've said. I was loving this film til about an hour and a little in. Seeems like the director wanted to make this already decent scifi film into more than it actually was. I'm waiting for the director to come along and be satisfied with making a hard sci-fi flick w/out all the fluff. That'll be the day.
I thought the "psycho slasher" element worked, mainly because I interpreted him as literally an agent of God trying to stop the crew from undoing what He intended. It did help that the movie had this Man Vs. Nature feel to it from the start, not to mention all that cavemen awe the crew had for the sun, as if it were a higher being.
Also available on Blu-ray.
The most frustrating film I saw this year. It skirts greatness and the visuals are damn pretty, but it stumbles something fierce near the end.
But frankly, the movie lost me a lot earlier when the ubiquitous female-voiced computer allows deadly mistakes to be easily made, yet actively overrides users that try to fix it. Wow, stellar (haha) attention to safety on what is supposed to be the most important mission of all time!
Add to that some scientific stupidity and coincidence, bah! It would be less frustrating if the movie was really bad, but now it seemed flawed in the worst way, meaning: fixable!
Half an hour later, in the pub, my friends had all plotholes fixed with only slight changes. And that made me even angrier!
Ardvark, you and your friends should have gone to the pub BEFORE seeing Danny Boyle's SUNSHINE. I think that would have made the film a little better.