film: Sunshine (2007)

d: danny boyle

s: cillian murphy, chris curtis, hiroyuki sanada, rose byrne, michelle yeoh, chris evans

Sometime in the future a last ditch effort crew is sent towards the sun riding behind a massive explosive device designed to reignite our dying star. The previous ship and crew failed under mysterious circumstances.



Danny Boyle brings together a fantastic cast to this intense sci fi/thriller with very good results.
The film has an isolation of space combined with a horror element that becomes reminiscent of Event Horizon, whilst simultaneously paying homage to 2001 in many ways, making this more accessable to the mainstream public than Kubrick's vision ever could.
I really liked it, but i did not love it. There were some great opportunities missed in developing more of the psychological aspects of the predicaments and sometimes strange dialogue.
4/5

I was thinking about going to see this. It's had some really mixed reviews... or rather, "meh" reviews. The critics seem to like it's style but didn't really buy into the characters.

One for the torrents?

dude, it's pretty spectacular on the big screen. worth the price of entry at least imo.

also for the poor americans who have to wait till september, here's the imdb link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134

Couldn't I just sit really close to my monitor?

Actually, you're right. Been meaning to go see this but have just been putting it off.

it was much better than i thought it would be

the mission is absolutely not realistic, and there are many absurdities

but if you accept to quickly forget about this and try to enjoy the movie, it's a very good film
very aesthetic, quite suspenseful, certainly entertaining
it had been a while that i hadn't left a theater thinking the film deserved the price i had paid

It looked beautiful. Definitely one for the big screen/surround sound, as said above.

I really liked the first half or so of the movie, but the conclusion (last 3rd or so) sucked, IMHO. The whole tone of the film changes, and not in a good way. If the film had started that way, fair enough, but it starts off as one kind of film and jumps to another - as if the studio had got cold feet and wanted to make it more appealing to a mainstream audience.

Spoilers ahead:

rate this movie

alasdair

I've watched about the first hour of the movie, and I decided to save the rest for the big screen.

What I have seen, so far, is spectacular. It's unfortunate that most of the reviews I've read say the film totally breaks down in the third act.

At the very least, it's visually appealing.

I downloaded it like a month ago and the story just isn't very great nor is the acting. 'Meh' is definitely my review. it wasn't bad at all, it just wasn't very entertaining either...

Infinite Jest said:

NSFW:

Things got ridiculous after they met the other ship. It was like the whole tone of the film changed, from an interesting, psychologically driven film to a ripoff of Alien. OK, they actually acknowledged that at one point, but even so, I was disappointed. It felt like the original version of the script was much more chilled out and psychological, and the studio had freaked and forced the director to put in some more action. There were so many interesting ways this thing could have gone - the debate over who was going to die so they had enough oxygen; the slow psychological disintegration of the characters (especially with the psychologist gone); their growing obsession with the sun, etc. They could even have found the original crew, clinging to life and half mad, but recognisably human.

Instead, the film gives us a completely unrealistic sci-fi horror villian, completely changing the whole mood of the film. It then insults our intelligence by having the characters do incredibly stupid things - Kapa never tells anyone that there's an intruder on board; the ship never warns them until Kapa specifically asks it. Not to mention the plot holes and unrealistic physics - all the oxygen-making plants are in ONE area, there's no backup, no fireproof doors, no sprinklers; they've been travelling 16 months and are still 53 million miles from the sun (less than half way), but they get there in another few days...etc. Ruined what was potentially a very good film.

[I don't mind all that space opera stuff, but it didn't belong in this film]

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Agreed. Well put.

I still don't really understand what went on towards the end. Film kinda tripped up on it's on religious metaphors.

psychetool said:

I downloaded it like a month ago and the story just isn't very great nor is the acting. 'Meh' is definitely my review. it wasn't bad at all, it just wasn't very entertaining either...

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Could be because absolutely all of the downloads of this, especially a month ago, have been garbage. I haven't seen any personally, but this is what I've been hearing.

Going to see this on the big screen today. Review to hopefully ensue.

*excited*

Nah, it is a great copy. Pretty much DVD rip. Let us know how it works out for ya. There was definitely a cool few scenes that would look great in the theater, but the plot is just... lacking

Ah, cool, thanks for clarifying, psychetool. I'll be trying to make the 12:15pm ET show half an hour's drive from here. I don't go to the cinema every week, so you could say that I may be more easily impressed by the Big Screen atmosphere than those who do. We'll see.

Sunshine.

It was a great film... at first. Despite the slow pace, I was totally captivated for about the first hour or so. The cast, their designations and abilities were laid out before us slowly, methodically. The pace was no different than the space voyage in Aliens, Solaris, Sphere and the like, or on the underwater station in The Abyss. The main difference is that (many of) those other films went on to develop into something meaningful, often referred to as the climax.

In the case of Sunshine, on the other hand, it seemed as though the director ran out of ideas about halfway through filming and thought to himself, "Well bollocks! I'm all out of ideas now. What in heaven's name should I do? I know! Maybe I'll pinch some ideas from my previous work - '28 Days!'"

For the next thirty to forty minutes, I witnessed what was at first such a promising story degenerate into a series of disjointed, schitzophrenic, badly stitched together episodes. What was supposed to be an exploding climax, turned out to be a case of Night of The Dead meets Omen meets The Funny Mirror Room at the county fair.

I'm going to give credit for the homework that must have been done to try and make many of the scientific details as genuinely realistic as possible ('try' being the key word). I'm also going to give credit for the first half to two thirds of the film. The balance was a total flop, IMHO.

A very reluctant three stars.

Now, can someone please take the first half of Sunshine and rewrite the rest of it? Thanks in advance.

P.S. Even though I had no intention of ever watching Transformers on the big screen, I walked into a showing immediately after walking out of Sunshine in a "WTF just happened to that good film?" semi depressed and slightly peed off state. Surprisingly, Transformers cheered me up.

SillyAlien said:

Now, can someone please take the first half of Sunshine and rewrite the rest of it? Thanks in advance.

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That sounds like a fair challenge.

P.S. Even though I had no intention of ever watching Transformers on the big screen, I walked into a showing immediately after walking out of Sunshine in a "WTF just happened to that good film?" semi depressed and slightly peed off state. Surprisingly, Transformers cheered me up.

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i'ma never speaking to you again!

i guess have the opposite opinion of what others have said.

generally, there has been a shortage of good science fiction lately. special effects-driven films have become "more about the science and less about the fiction," which is some kind of Stanislaw Lem misquote. Sunshine, reminded me of Lem's Solaris, along with Alien and some other films. similar to these, Sunshine has lots of dark corners and shadows filling the frame, rather than $1 million/scene CGI at every turn. in this sense, it's a welcome relief from typical fare.

it was hard to care about such dreary characters during the movie's first part. (if only Boyle could get Ewan MacGregor again.) what appears later in the film, made it easier to appreciate how fatalist the crew was. admittedly, the action sequences weren't perfect, and they do sorta interrupt whatever psycho-drama had occurred earlier. still, it gave the story some immediacy, cuz it really didn't have the pull to make it as a 2001 space drama. notwithstanding some faults -- most sci fans should find it entertaining, interesting, and worthwhile.

I am in the majority. Solid first two acts, tanked in the third.

I get the feeling that this movie should have been longer. Give the third act at least 20 or 30 more minutes and it could have been a very solid film.

It's a shame, really.

I should probably use these things incase anyone still wants to watch this (it was quite crap really)

^^
I think you need to watch the movie again... and pay attention, cause based on your comments it doesn't seem like you did.

ego_loss said:

^^
I think you need to watch the movie again... and pay attention, cause based on your comments it doesn't seem like you did.

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I usually don't. Will you just tell me, because I'm not watching that twice.