Film Reviews

Sunshine

• Rating:
• Director: Danny Boyle
• Starring: Chris Evans
• Details: UK / 98mins (15A).

It's 50 years into the future and our sun is dying, and with it any hope of Earth's survival. The mission for a team of astronauts - including Cillian Murphy's scientist Capa - is to detonate the sun with a massive bomb, which will re-ignite it and save Earth. However, they come up against a host of serious problems when they encounter a distress signal from the original mission, lost seven years ago. What secrets does the ghost ship hold? Sunshine is an amalgamation of 2001's grand concept, 2010's methodical pacing, Event Horizon's darkness, Solaris's mood and, eh, Solar Crisis's sloppiness. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, it's the latter that wins out in the end. The movie holds fast for as long as it can, but writer Alex Garland (The Beach) loses the plot big time in the final twenty minutes. He isn't helped by Boyle's (who changed tact in the final third) distorted direction and who seems confused by Garland's twists. The story does raise interesting questions - but Garland backs out of them at the last moment. This is a running problem for the whole movie: rich in ideas, poor in fruition. The characters are cold and the only real thought went into Murphy's Capa. Murphy has been better and it's not that he's bad here or anything of the sort; he just doesn't have a lot to work with. Sunshine is a great idea with some nice sequences, but it deserved a better execution.

Review by Gavin Burke