This film SUNSHINE, the new sci-fi-actioner-horror by British genre-defining director Danny Boyle, is impeccably like the sun, stark with dazzling light, visual wonders, and blinding mysteries. With its ideas, “could-happen” science fiction, psychological observation of humans, spiritual evocations, and the physical risks in outer space – without doubt, we have come across again in what we call an extraordinary outer space movie. SUNSHINE is a spectacular film to behold.


Mankind is at extinction, and the fate of it all was shown in a visceral, breathtaking outer space journey towards our nearest star, the Sun. In 2057, our Sun is dying and Earth is suffering solar winter. The only way to reignite the Sun’s capability is to send a group of humans for mankind’s sake in an exploration and a mission to send a high-powered “payload” or bomb to detonate again its normal activity. In the first scene, the premise is exact and straight to the point, no-nonsense bullshit. Cillian Murphy in an understated performance as Robert Kappa narrates that a former mission was sent to reignite the Sun but failed with unknown status; now it’s their turn, Icarus II, to carry on the mission that would put their lives in jeopardy. But who else then would save mankind?


Enter eight multi-racial scientists: Capt. Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) leads the mission with level-headedness; Robert Kappa (Cillian Murphy, who also starred Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER), a physicists who’s the centre of the film; Chris Evans’ Mace (brilliant delivery by Evans), a pressurised astronaut who flares up with miniscule mistakes; Rose Byrne’s Cassie displays the film’s emotional core; Michelle Yeoh’s biologist Corazon who takes cares of the plants and grows the food of the ship; and the rest with Troy Garity’s Harvey, Cliff Cutis’ Searle, and Benedict Wong’s faulty Trey who inflicts miscalculations that caused the ship’s disturbance.
It’s hard not to point out how Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY had influenced this film, or how other space epics had seemed to put a seed on this new-age exploration. From the gripping, teeth-chattering sequence (one that wouldn’t let you let go from your seat for a comfort room break) where Kappa and Kaneda exits out of Icarus II to fix the ship’s misfunctioning hydraulics, we notice some excerpts from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, that results in a visual complexity that would knuckle-gnaw your senses. It’s an amazing sight to see someone get flared up in the sun, I promise. Not gory, and a mystery how Danny Boyle managed to pull off the film’s first death scene in such a beautiful, climaxing way.


Then, they face another situation. They discovered Icarus I’s ship being harboured in space very near to the sun, and decides to stop over to use the its bomb. Two shots will be better than one, they reckoned. But this decision leads to much greater risks, as had been foretold by an early miscalculation that one fault move, one change of the ship’s angle, something wrong will happen. Choices had to be made; sacrifices had to be done as more deaths occur. There’s only one final thing that troubles them most: the ship’s oxygen can only accommodate four people, thus letting the crews face a moral dilemma. Should they kill each other to maximize their population to four?


The fourth and final act would have to raise the what-the-hell-was-that tantrum episodes, as the film tries to bring back a character that had survived Sun’s dying power inside a derelict ship within 7 years. Audience might find it a little too impossible, but clearly Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland (who also reinvents the zombie genre in 28 DAYS LATER) dishes out queries and jumps into a another genre once defined by Ridley Scott’s ALIEN. This suddenly becomes claustrophobic horror as the crew races around the ship, fixing the malfunction while running away from this skinned survivor. This act also deftly regurgitates the infinite battle between science and religion, as the creepy character at the end seemed to have characterised a man blinded by faith yet retrieved his belief when his mission failed that indeed God wants Sun to die and mankind battles with His decision.


If you are planning to see this film and had already read my review, don’t look at me when you thought I said this was such a great film and that you were completely dead over your bollocks about the movie’s ending. Its climax could be a little jarring for some, doing a subtle mix of spirited scenes and eye-popping vistas instead of a whirl-slam-bang grand ovation; in sci-fi tradition, sometimes ending doesn’t necessarily makes sense (blame Kubrick, for Chrissake). But in SUNSHINE, try to look at it in a mannered point of view as you step back to look at its fullness; we see Kappa as he sacrifices his life to finalise a mission that was brought out 16 months before, and as he delivers the last push of the button, he stands as he notices the sparks around him. This scene is particularly beautifully shot, as Kappa raises his hand to feel the wave emitted by the sun, rippling in front of him. We know that this is his spirit as he rejoices in the fulfilment of his purpose. If you haven’t known this, pardon me for spoiling your viewing pleasure.


There are loads of things that are far-cry from possibility level, but we rather forgive rather happily on how the solar panels in Icarus II wouldn’t melt when very near to the sun, or how that creepy skinned guy appears at the end to bring the old one-two horror kind of show. This film is enigmatic enough, just like the former space epics. It’s always worth the post-viewing debate. But SUNSHINE deserves its applause; from majestic visuals that give us a blinding cinematic experience (a budget of $4o million comes in great payoff, a masterclass of budgeting, sense and resourcefulness) , a gripping plot that would hold our nerves mercilessly, and a realistic feel of this ship, in which all gratefulness goes to Danny Boyle for putting humans in Icarus II that has emotions, has the capability to be scared witless and flawed with imperfection.


As what Robert Kappa had said: “If you wake up one morning and find it’s a beautiful day outside, you’ll know we have made it.”


This SUNSHINE has indeed made it.



RATING: A-