Sunshine
2007
*½
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Chipo Chung, Mark Strong
Danny Boyle claims he was influenced by thinking man's science fiction like Alien, Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but his dreadful film is closer to the dumb action and hokey science of Armageddon, The Core and Event Horizon. In 2057 the Earth is engulfed in a permanent solar winter, but Icarus II is on its way to detonate a payload of explosives which will hopefully reignite the dying star. The crew begins to grow fractious as they approach the sun and receive a distress signal from Icarus I which disappeared seven years earlier. Alex Garland's screenplay doesn't take any time to explain the mechanics of the ship or the dynamics of its crew. One moment the physicist played by Cillian Murphy is sent out on a potentially lethal mission to fix the shield, a moment later he's indispensable (what is the contingency plan?). It's difficult to care about these eight bickering bores, let alone the rest of humanity back on Earth. Boyle does his best to make everything as incomprehensible as possible. The first two thirds are merely dull and confusing, but come the final 30 minutes you're lucky if you can figure out what's what, who's who, who's where, what's happening or why you're still watching? As a final note, the one chord sound effects are extremely irritating, or perhaps that's part of the soundtrack by Underworld.
