Cillian Murphy- Capa
Rose Byrne- Cassie
Michelle Yeoh- Corazon
Chris Evans- Mace
Cliff Curtis- Searle
Hiroyuki Sanada- Kaneda
Benedict Wong- Trey
Troy Garity- Harvey
Chipo Chung- voice of Icarus
Directed by Danny Boyle
Screenplay byAlex Garland
Distributed by Fox Searchlight
Rated R for violent content and language
Runtime- 108 minutes
Website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/sunshine/
Danny Boyle's science fiction flick "Sunshine" is a movie about the impending end of the world. Basically, the sun is dying and will have to be "restarted" via a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan, which is the mission of the varied crew of the spaceship "Icarus II." There's the captain (Kaneda, as played by Hiroyuki Sanada), the pilot (Cassie, as played by Rose Byrne), a psychologist (Searle, as played by Cliff Curtis), a botanist (Corazon, as played by Michelle Yeoh), an engineer (Mace, as played by Chris Evans), a radio guy (Harvey, as played by Troy Garrity), a navigator (Trey, as played by Benny Wong), and a physicist (Cillian Murphy). They run the ship, hang around looking at various planets and the sun (via some kind of viewer thing that transmits a vew of the sun and everything else), communicate with Earth, and just wait until they get to the sun. There's tension among the crew, for various reasons. The trip to the sun takes a few years, so that's quite a bit of time on board the ship and hanging out with the same seven people "day in and day out," there's a chance the mission could fail, and they're not the first crew to attempt this mission. They're called "Icarus II" for a reason.
What's most fascinating about "Sunshine" is that it's a countdown movie with no countdown. We're never really told how long Earth has left unless something is done about the dying sun, we never get a sense of the real danger involved with the mission even when Icarus II runs into what remains of Icarus I. There are moments of introspective character doom (Cillian Murphy's character has a recurring dream about falling into the sun, which would really suck if it did in fact happen) and "stick to the mission" bravado (Chris Evans' Mace), but all of that just sort of happens because the story requires something to happen and there'd be no movie if everyone just sat around. And when the end of the movie comes around you don't feel any sense of accomplishment or failure by any of the characters you've been watching for two hours.
The movie isn't a failure, though. It's not entertaining in the same way a "Star Wars" or even an "Alien" movie are entertaining, it's entertaining on a different level. I'm not going to say that it's "intellectual science fiction" because I have no idea what that means (isn't all science fiction, on some level, intellectual, since science fiction always deals with ideas?), and I'm not going to say that it's "smart" and "operating on a higher level" than other science fiction movies. Is "Sunshine" pretentious? A bit. There is a sense that Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland believe that they're really making a statement or an observation on humanity and the universe and religion, and there are times where it seems as though that stuff is getting in the way of the story, but the flick is so well made, the craftsmanship on all levels is so high and meticulous you forgive everyone involved. "Sunshine" is mesmerizing.
And, as a movie nerd, it's fun to watch "Sunshine" and notice the movies Boyle is ripping off through the course of the story. These are the "homages" I noticed. There are probably more that I missed, or perhaps I'm misinterpreting some of them, but these are the ones I "saw": "2001: A Space Odyssey," "2010," "Mission to Mars," "Jason X," "Hollow Man," "Event Horizon," "Dark Star," "Alien," and I'm willing to say that Boyle essentially rips off his own "28 Days Later" towards the end. Now, there's nothing wrong with using other movies for inspiration or even ripping them off completely (there's nothing wrong with stealing ideas since artists do it all of the time. Didn't T.S. Eliot say that "Mature poets steal"?). Much like Boyle's "28 Days Later" rip offs, the rip offs in "Sunshine" work. I just hope that Boyle backers and fanatics, at least in this case, are willing to admit all of that.
There are no real stand out performances. Murphy's performance as the knowingly doomed physicist Capa is probably going to be the one most people remember since he gets the most screen time. Michelle Yeoh's botanist character is memorable because she's a botanist and she doesn't engage in a martial arts fight even one time (although I think she does run down a hallway once). Interesting bit of stunt casting there. Mace, as played by Chris Evans, gets some cringe inducing scenes swimming in either wicked cold water or some version of liquid nitrogen (I was confused about what exactly that stuff was) and manages to make a hero character just a cog in the wheel of the story. It doesn't seem awkward at all. Everyone else just sort of plays a part.
The one question I did have about the plot is why didn't all of the crew members know, or at least have a working knowledge, of every aspect of the ship? Why would anyone have a specific specialty and essentially no knowledge about any other function of the ship? It just doesn't seem plausible that Earth's governments would spend oodles of money and resources building a spaceship and a bomb to send to the sun and not have a crew that had people on it that could take over in the event someone is injured or dies? Or is that meant to showcase the ultimate stupidity or the inability of humanity to see far enough ahead not to make those kinds of mistakes? And why would there be only one psychiatrist/psychologist on board? What if he freaked out?
So what do we have here? The Fox Searchlight logo morphing into the sun and helping start the opening monologue, a talking spaceship, sunglasses, futuristic clear plastic water jugs and cups, gratuitous Chinese food, gratuitous sending messages back to Earth, gratuitous on board farm and garden, sound in space, looking at the sun and planets, fighting, a virtual reality "Earth" room, classified transmissions, liquid nitrogen, looking at Mercury, gratuitous putting face in green light thing, a discussion about altering space and time, planet gravity slingshots, a "surface of the sun" dream, a submarine movie alert, gratuitous suiting up, space walks, a gold space suit that looks like it was designed by Neil Diamond, a giant solar flare space wave thing, a big fire, skin cancer, subliminal faces, human skin that has turned into dust, sabotage, jumping from ship to ship in space, taking your mask off in space and your face freezing, killing, an electric chainsaw pen knife, wrist slitting, blood on hands, religious extremism, door melting, gratuitous shots from inside the space suit, cinematic character irony (think "Fantastic 4"), skin ripping, and the ending.
Best lines: "Welcome to Icarus II," "Remember, it takes eight minutes for light to reach Earth," "We have an excess of manliness in the com room," "Shit," "Two last hopes are better than one," "I forgot, okay!," "I fucked up!," "So cancel the ticket tape parade," "Got water, got food, no crew, no bodies," "It is not our place to challenge God," "The payload is fully operational! It's a-okay!," "Fuck you Capa! What are you trying to remind us of, our lost humanity?," "Are you an angel?," and "For seven years I spoke with God."
"Sunshine" is a fine movie made with precision. A suspense movie with no suspense. Amazing.
Go see it if you can. It's not what you'd expect. But you've likely seen most of it in a different form at some point.
See it.
The 411: "Sunshine" isn't the movie the plot description suggests it is. It's not a countdown movie. There is no suspense. You've seen it all before. And yet the flick is oddly compelling. It's so well made you forgive its issues and "problems." An amazing achievement. See it.
