Sunshine
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Starring:
Cillian Murphy - Capa
Rose Byrne - Cassie
Chris Evans - Mace
Michelle Yeoh - Corazon
Cliff Curtis - Searle
Hiroyuki Sanada - Kaneda
Troy Garity - Harvey
Benedict Wong - Trey
A film that re-teams the three crucial elements from 28 Days Later, director Danny Boyle, writer Alex Garland, and star Cillian Murphy, should be a recipe for another great film and for its first two acts, Sunshine completely surpasses the 2003 zombie flick and most of the other films this year. And then, in one moment, it’s all destroyed and you’re left wondering what the hell just happened to the movie you were loving.
The sun is dying and it’s making Earth ache for the good old days of global warming. A team of eight scientists and astronauts board the Icarus II (I know “Apollo” was taken already but couldn’t you do “Helios”? The only step down from invoking a mythological character who flew too close to the sun and died is taking the name Phaeton, the son of Helios who hijacked his father’s sun chariot and set the Earth ablaze) in a mission to drop a “stellar bomb” (nuclear bomb is so Armageddon) and basically create a star within our sun. As the crew gets closer to their destination, the demands of the mission change and decisions are made which ultimately put the attempt to save humanity in danger.
The first two acts work beautifully. Boyle’s direction is, if I may use the term, stellar. There’s wonderful visual motifs involving eyes and light and darkness but Boyle maintains a tension that is absent from such intellectually-stimulating-yet-slow-moving films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris. Cillian Murphy is too good-looking for the everyman character he’s supposed to represent but it’s endearing to see that the film’s hero, Chris Evans’ Mace, is actually a supporting role and not the lead as is the case with 90% of all movies involving a hero (this statistic was brought to you by Guessing).
Unfortunately, the tension, beauty, and everything great the film managed to build in its first hour goes out the window as the film becomes a different kind of monster and one that still fits thematically but is a blistering sore on the narrative and tonality of the film that just festers till the final credits.
Despite the unity of the talent, cinematography, performances, and elements of the movie, Sunshine shows how just one little twist can throw a beautiful film off course and into the black hole of disappointment.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
7.13.07