Good Day Sunshine
I’d forgotten Chris Evens was in Sunshine. I watch and review a lot to his movies (see here, here, and here), but when sitting down for a rematch of this 2007 movie, I was more excited to see Cillian Murphy in action, and didn’t remember Evens had a major part. Granted, 2007 was still pre-stardom for Evans, so it’s quite likely his character didn’t register. Still, I was happy when Evens showed up; his time on screen is always worth watching.
Sunshine is a great movie, and would be better if it wasn’t marred by a slow/confusing third act. Directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Alex Garland, Sunshine is set in the near future and concerns the crew of the Icarus II. The sun is dying and Earth has sent a team of scientists out in a spaceship in order to detonate a bomb inside the sun and save the human race. Mankind tried sending a ship on this exact same mission seven years previously, only the Icarus I disappeared and no one knows what happened to it. Tensions rise when the Icarus II finds the Icarus I and diverts in their mission in order to solve the mystery of why the first ship failed. Danny Boyle consulted with several members of CERN when working on the movie in order to make it as realistic as possible, and his efforts show on screen. The actors do a great job conveying the stress of living on a spaceship for years at a time. I am not a scientist, but the scientific plot points feel sound; there’s no gimmicks to suspend my disbelief.
Sunshine is ambitious, exploring the nature of morality, morality, religion, and other big questions. It’s a daunting task for a movie not based on another property, but the cast pulls it off admirably. Most of the movie is shot in warm gold tones, in a nice break from modern orange-and-teal color schemes. While director Boyle took inspiration from art-house sic-fi pictures such as Solaris and 2001, the movie it reminds me most of is Event Horizon, a movie that blends science fiction with horror just as effectively. Sunshine is more sic-fi than horror, but its tension is more of the horror/dread variety. With so many ways the Icarus II can fail in its mission, the crew are constantly on edge, bickering often and even resorting to fistfights on occasion. This is how I like my horror: more uneasy and dread-inducing rather than gross. There are a few gross-out moments in Sunshine, but for the most part, the horror is the type of queasiness that settles in the pit of my stomach and takes root.
Rewatches are interesting because of the tendency to notice different things the second or third time around. With the time that’s passed since my first viewing of Sunshine, Chris Evens’s stardom has eclipsed Cillian Murphy’s. While the movie still belongs to Murphy, Evens’s character added to my enjoyment of the film, and I spent most of my time rooting for Evens to stay alive.
tl;drs
Blank is a blanker version of blank: Sunshine is what would’ve happened if Kubrick had made 2001 a horror movie.
Screen credits over/under: Under. Sunshine was the third collaboration between screenwriter Alex Garland and Danny Boyle; the other two movies being The Beach and the excellent 28 Days Later.
Recommended if you like: Event Horizon; Danny Boyle’s evil side.
Better than I expected: Much like the recent Gravity, Sunshine is a character-driven drama wrapped in the grandiosity of a space story.
Worse than I hoped: The third act doesn’t do the rest of the movie justice, but the first two-thirds are amazing.
Sunshine would work better as a(n): A Battlestar Galactica style series about a crew all alone in the vacuum of space? I’d pay to see that.
Verdict: While not as game-changing as 28 Days Later, Sunshine is nevertheless a welcome addition to the sic-fi/horror genre.
