Cross-Posted from Giraffe Versus Unicorn.
Danny Boyle's Sunshine is a gorgeous psychological thriller set in the confines of the Icarus II space station, as it makes it's way towards the sun to deliver a bomb that will reignite the dieing star.
The eight-strong crew of the Icarus II are instructed to carry out their goal as follows: the ship will fly within reach of the sun and fire it's payload of nuclear material, 'equal in mass to Manhattan Island', into it's very heart, while propelling themselves away within a four minute deadline. Only, they're met with a myriad of problems along the way.
When they receive a distress beacon from the crew of the Icarus I, the first attempt at such a huge mission, the decision to chance docking with the other ship or continuing with the task at hand is left to Cillian Murphy's Capa, the ship's physics expert and the only person capable of delivering the payload.
Events take a turn for the worse and the movie broadens it's outlook as it enters it's final act, as it throws in a physical presence (without giving too much away) to add to the overload of tension. The film falters here, at the final hurdle, with a tacked on addition that just doesn't feel needed.
Sunshine gives sometimes unsubtle nods to previous science fiction movies, evoking the paranoia and claustrophobia of Alien and borrowing slithers of ideas from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also plays, at one point, on the harsh cuts and scrapes of shots from Event Horizon, as the crew board the previous Icarus ship. Pictures and memories of the ship's former crew are interspersed between shots, building a sinister atmosphere.
Stunning visuals throughout the film match a well-crafted story which dabbles in and touches on isolation, depravation and selflessness, and on a bigger scale, religion, global warming and man's intent to take one final shot and risk burning out rather than fading away.
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