SUNSHINE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
With a story that would suggest its title might have more appropriately been
ARMAGEDDON 2, SUNSHINE is a sci-fi snoozer that will remind one of another
such pretentious dud, SOLARIS, Steven Soderbergh's 2002 fiasco starring
George Clooney.
SUNSHINE, which takes place sometime in the future when our sun is quickly
running out of gas, concerns a mission to recharge the sun with a nuclear
bomb. As one of the astronauts explains to us in the introductory
voice-over, "We are eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb -- my
bomb. Welcome to Icarus 2." This will immediately have you asking what
exactly happened to the failed original Icarus.
Your question will be answered, but, only sort of, when the Icarus 2
discovers its predecessor, which disappeared seven years ago. The Icarus 2
crew, which includes Searle (Cliff Curtis), Corazon (Michelle Yeoh,
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) and Capa (Cillian Murphy, 28 DAYS LATER),
reluctantly decide to divert their mission temporarily in order to get the
bomb on board Icarus 1. Two bombs are better than one, they reason.
Director Danny Boyle (28 DAYS LATER) isn't able to make much sense out of
Alex Garland's script, pacing it so slowly and ponderously that all of its
many logical problems come glaring out. One guy, for example, does a brief
space walk in minus 270 degrees Celsius without a space suit and lives.
Another time, the spaceship's all-knowing and ever-present talking computer
calculates one mission's potential success at 45% but adds that her estimate
has a completely unknown accuracy. Huh?
Our packed theater had many walk-outs, and those who stayed laughed at the
ridiculous and pretentious script and painfully slow motions of the crew.
The special effects aren't much and the movie isn't nearly as much fun as
the not very good ARMAGEDDON, which does at least have its cheesily humorous
moments. In contrast, SUNSHINE takes itself way too seriously to offer any
humor, except the unintentional.
Along the way, it asks us to ponder such eternal questions as whether it is
worth sacrificing one man in order to save all humanity and whether it is
possible for one deranged man to destroy all of humankind. Ugh.
Ah, and then there is the ending, which calls to mind another of this
summer's painful films, TRANSFORMERS, whose ending seemed like it would
never actually end. If you find yourself, for whatever reason, liking
SUNSHINE up until the last act, I suspect you'll agree that the last act is
so off the scale bad that it completely sabotages the movie. In what may or
may not be a dream sequence, Cassie screams "Finish it!" to Capa. "Amen!" I
was thinking. Explode this bomb at the earliest possible moment in order to
get this bomb of a movie off of the screen.
SUNSHINE runs too long at 1:48. It is rated R for "violent content and
language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, July 27, 2007. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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