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SUNSHINE by Danny Boyle

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The sun is dying, and spaceship ICARUS II with a crew of eight is dispatched with a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan to reignite the sun and save Earth and mankind from freezing to death. Seven years earlier, ICARUS I was dispatched with the same mission, but Earth lost contact with ICARUS I and the fate of the mission is unknown.
Getting closer to the sun and with increasing radiation levels, ICARUS II loses radio contact to Earth – but receive a distress beacon from ICARUS I. Capa (Cillian Murphy), the mission physicist, recommends to rendezvous with ICARUS I to salvage it’s nuclear device and double the chances for success. Chances are only theoretical, anyway: exact calculations of the conditions in the sun are impossible because of the high gravity and radiation levels which distort space-time.
Trey (Benedict Wong) calculates the course to ICARUS I, but then something goes horribly wrong …

A manned vehicle with an important mission on the way to a more or less spherical object? Doesn’t sound very original. Actually, it sounds a lot like Event Horizon, Solaris, Sphere, The Core, Contact or Armageddon. And the idea to reignite a dying sun with a nuclear bomb (or something like that) doesn’t sound very sophisticated or scientific as well (check out the scale of Earth and Sun on the picture!). You might expect another corny, shabby, elevated or just plain stupid action adventure with a Science Fiction-touch.
But you would be so wrong!
Sun / Earth size comparison British director Danny Boyle creates a poetic journey to the celestial object that makes Earth the beautiful place full of life it is, and even though (or because) he doesn’t fall back on pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo and techno-babble to try to make the ridiculously impossible mission believable, the combination of awesome production design, music and beautiful photography does just that.
The actor’s performances are adequate but not extraordinary – SUNSHINE ain’t a character-driven film, but a feast for the eyes and mind, and the action-packed finale feels almost unnecessary and out of place after the meditative experience of the opening, but will satisfy those who are not content with the journey and expect some bang from a disaster-Science Fiction film.
Don’t miss this one, and don’t wait for the DVD – watch it on the big screen you should!

“So if you wake up one morning and it’s a particularly beautiful day, you’ll know we made it.”


Sunshine trailer

One Response to “SUNSHINE by Danny Boyle”

  1. Movie Review » SPAN by Paul Moore Says:

    […] a bit like Moon or Sunshine, with some Blade Runner and Alien elements – call me officially excited. I want to see this […]

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