Genre: Science Fiction
Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, and Chris Evans
How good is Sunshine? The third act is an embarrassing disaster and yet everyone who watches the movie becomes an instant ambassador, telling their friends to watch it ASAP. When I say the third act is bad, I mean someone at the screening lost the last few reels of 2001: A Space Odyssey and instead spliced in 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason.
Sunshine is the kind of sci-fi film that feels it will only be fiction for a few more decades. The movie follows a mission to recharge and save our dying sun, thereby saving us humans in the process. Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later), the movie succeeds where I feel Interstellar failed. Even though Interstellar stuck to the science, it never feels real whereas Sunshine looks like a mission we could be streaming live. The team of scientists look and talk like what our imagination tells us scientists look and talk like. Every aspect of what you see on screen looks practical and that’s what makes it cinematic.
The plot is simple enough, a mission to the sun to unload a bomb that will explode inside the dying star to reignite it. A simple mission requires simple, yet devastating obstacles and that’s what the story delivers. That’s what the best stories deliver because it gives us a chance to see how different humans react under such strenuous conditions. Boyle does such a good job that the movie doesn’t even need an end, especially the one we’re given. When I say Freddy vs. Jason, I mean Freddy vs. Jason. It’s hard to adjust to the mindlessness of a horror movie after watching something so educational and Boyle’s attempt at highbrow horror is just a bridge too far.
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