IHM Staff Pick – March 18th, 2010: “Sunshine”
Sunshine (2007)
Starring: Chris Evans, Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Chipo Chung, Mark Strong
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rating: R
Sunshine can is a sci-fi thriller that has a very simple plot but is complex and well directed. Plot: It’s 2057 and the sun is dying, if we don’t reignite it then everything on the planet will die. So you may be thinking to yourself, “oh no, not another Core or Armageddon end of the world movie”. Don’t worry, the acting and directing it’s light years ahead of your typical end of the world film. Essentially the characters in the film are sent on a psychological journey into the sun.
Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll fill you in on some of the story. First we learn that this mission isn’t the first attempt to reignite the sun. Seven years prior, a spacecraft (Icarus I) was sent out with a similar crew but contact was lost and the crew is presumed dead with no known explanation. Now a new crew has been assembled and is on it’s way with a new payload (Icarus II) which has all the remaining fissile materials left on earth. This means that if this mission fails, the earth is doomed because we have nothing else to throw at the sun to make it go boom.
With the crew well on it’s way to the sun an error in calculating a heat shield realignment causes significant damage to the ship and it’s oxygen supply. Without enough oxygen to make a return trip, everyone is feeling pretty depressed and even one of the crew is put on a suicide watch list. Making things worse is not knowing what happened to the previous ship. Maybe they had a similar lack of oxygen, or maybe there was an explosion, or they went off course, no one knows but everyone is thinking about it. Now as a little more time passes, it turns out that they have even less oxygen as previously calculated and won’t even make it to their destination to deliver the payload. So one person must stop breathing (most likely be killed) in order to allow the rest of the crew to survive. Getting pretty intense right? Well everything escalates from there.
Danny Boyle directed this film and although you may not recognize his name, he has some pretty great and varied films attached to his name, such as: Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire. Even though all of the films have very different themes, Danny Boyle is great at creating a sense of excitement and anticipation and has your eyes glued to the screen.
So if you want a great sci-fi thriller that gets your heart racing, make sure you pick up Sunshine this weekend on DVD or Blu-ray.
Rent Sunshine on Netflix
Buy Sunshine on Amazon
Buy Sunshine (Blu-ray) on Amazon
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