Sunshine (2007)
This movie, directed by Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Trainspotter, Shallow Grave) is set in 2057 and our sun, Sol, is dying out. Apparently it has not yet swelled up into a red giant and begun consuming all the inner planets which is what happens when all the hydrogen is turned into helium as far as I know. Either way it doesn't make sense. A change as radical as that would take millions of years. Anyway, it has just ceased to function. It has been 7 years since Icarus, the spacecraft sent with a team of scientists to deliver a nuclear bomb to re-ignite the earth has been lost and so Icarus 2 has been sent to replace it. It is 18 months into the mission and the crew of eight, 36 million miles from their target must finish the job.
This movie was not an easy watch. It was exhilarating and gripping but also overwhelming and painful throughout. The cgi is spot on (frankly I am not spitting like a cobra at cgi when it does what it intended to do - thats just me) nd the spacecraft very impressive and the techno rock music worked well. The cast is a part Asian and part Western crew which suggested to me the future idea of power sharing between countries. We have the captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) who is pretty underdeveloped as a character, the navigator Trey (Benedict Wong), the physicist and central character Capa (Cillian Murphy), the biologist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), the American engineer Mace (Chris Evan), the American communications officer Harvey (Troy Garity), the medical officer Searle (Cliff Curtis) and the pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne).
As well as bright and stunning interstellar action sequences there are issues of psychological and social drama which for the first 2/3 of the movie has quite an interesting and tense atmosphere. We see the relationships between the characters – the rivalry between the charismatic Capa and the aggressive Mace and the hinted sexual tension between Capa and the female pilot Cassie. I definitely think that the captain should have had some more development and the doctor too whom we see watching the sun at the start with fascination. The inevitable sequence of writing off each character could have been done better – the demises themselves were inventive enough but you wouldn’t expect the captain to be killed off so quickly just when we were getting to know him. On the plus side I really felt the devastation Trey felt at forgetting to adjust the shields properly and consequently causing a huge dilemma – rendezvous with the Icarus 1 from which a faint signal had been sent or continue with the mission with a very low chance of success. Realising you have failed mankind and having every person on the ship know it must be truly terrifying and Wong’s character portrayed this frighteningly well and though his fate was hardly surprising, it nonetheless shocked me to the core.
Then I found things getting very confusing. My guess is that it alternates between virtual reality involving a crew member from the last Icarus - who appears to have mutated as a result of his isolation and gone mad – and the final attempt to see the mission through and power up the sun again to save humanity. I really felt that in the last part the movie started to go down hill and it didn’t feel right - the whole supernatural god idea. While I am sure it was an interesting and 'bright' (sorry couldn't resist) set of ideas I really felt that a simpler and more understandable ending would have been fitting.
Sunshine reminded me of Apollo 13 in more ways than one. Being a space movie, Apollo 13 was a movie made for men as a chick flick is made for women. It was about a true story of a group of intelligent and highly dedicated men who despite having to fight for their survival, manage to solve near impossible problems and do so with the very essence of male friendship and teamwork. Sunshine evolved from Apollo 13 in that the cgi was exponentially sexed up and the special effects etc. The mission had great potential for intelligent problem solving and what’s more than that, great potential for a prime example of the excellence of men when it comes to being the keepers of judgement of humanity for the good or bad – in this case good or salvation.
But it was not to be.
Sunshine takes a step back when it comes to the portrayal of men – in terms of sympathy for example. While their thunder is not necessarily stolen by the two female characters, the men in this film as not given a very positive image. In Apollo 13 the men managed to work as a team and get past all the anger that was caused by the challenges, tense situations and especially sacrifice.
In this movie the men are fighting over who will survive and seem to hate each other, making resentful comments and getting into fights over the most trivial matters and eventually the most important matters. The extremely potent teamwork and friendship as seen in Apollo 13 would be far more likely that what we see in this movie.
Early on in the film we see the central man, Capa break into a childish fight with Mace over a trivial thing and Cassie, the one of the two woman who I did not like, uttered the typical: “We have an outbreak of manliness,” or something along these lines – showing women as the mature, grown up professionals who are sick of these 'boys with toys.' It was a completely unnecessary thing to say and was really petty and intruding. If the world was threatened by the sun I am nearly 100 percent sure there would be no women on such a voyage – they’d be considered far too valuable and be protected at all costs on the planet. This is what makes this movie in spite of all its realism backed up by cgi, obvious fantasy.
Cassie herself was unnecessary. She mocked all the things men stand for and risk their lives for with all of their creative ‘testosterone.’ She contributes little compared to the other characters, conveniently being the pilot so as she is in expendable compared to the male characters and her pessimism and whining at times made her more of a liability than an asset. She was the typical politically correct ‘decoration’ and violation of men’s territories. The way she said goodbye, we love you to the medical doctor who volunteers to leave himself behind was so devoid of emotion and fake. The whole romance idea between her and Capa is a very bad one for a space mission where lives are risked and chivalry can make spontaneous irrational decisions capable of overwriting the importance of saving mankind. I am not saying women should not be allowed into space movies no questions asked – just not to make her role so annoying. Michelle Yeoh’s character was tolerable enough – she is professional enough and even likeable. I also knew that since Capa was the most charismatic and that he was quite intimate with Cassie that he would be the last to survive. I could never tell what order the others would die (other than the first would be male) but I knew he would be the one to reflect on his life in the last 20min of the movie. They were all tall, young and Hollywood movie star look-alikes when the crew aboard a real spacecraft on a real mission like this one would be older and far more experienced, but again we can tell the good guys from the bad. The ones that were assholes all died with little punch behind it other than interesting methods of death e.g. Ghostship airlock breaking. The man who is not or is least an asshole i.e. is liked by the female characters is always the most likely to survive.
After seeing a trailer for this movie involving awesome solar rays and fire and giant spacecrafts and little previous experience of space movies since the likes of Armageddon and Apollo 13, I found Sunshine to be quite intriguing. Enough to draw my attention away from Mr. Bean’s Holiday for sure.
This movie, directed by Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Trainspotter, Shallow Grave) is set in 2057 and our sun, Sol, is dying out. Apparently it has not yet swelled up into a red giant and begun consuming all the inner planets which is what happens when all the hydrogen is turned into helium as far as I know. Either way it doesn't make sense. A change as radical as that would take millions of years. Anyway, it has just ceased to function. It has been 7 years since Icarus, the spacecraft sent with a team of scientists to deliver a nuclear bomb to re-ignite the earth has been lost and so Icarus 2 has been sent to replace it. It is 18 months into the mission and the crew of eight, 36 million miles from their target must finish the job.
SPOILER BEGIN
As well as bright and stunning interstellar action sequences there are issues of psychological and social drama which for the first 2/3 of the movie has quite an interesting and tense atmosphere. We see the relationships between the characters – the rivalry between the charismatic Capa and the aggressive Mace and the hinted sexual tension between Capa and the female pilot Cassie. I definitely think that the captain should have had some more development and the doctor too whom we see watching the sun at the start with fascination. The inevitable sequence of writing off each character could have been done better – the demises themselves were inventive enough but you wouldn’t expect the captain to be killed off so quickly just when we were getting to know him. On the plus side I really felt the devastation Trey felt at forgetting to adjust the shields properly and consequently causing a huge dilemma – rendezvous with the Icarus 1 from which a faint signal had been sent or continue with the mission with a very low chance of success. Realising you have failed mankind and having every person on the ship know it must be truly terrifying and Wong’s character portrayed this frighteningly well and though his fate was hardly surprising, it nonetheless shocked me to the core.
Then I found things getting very confusing. My guess is that it alternates between virtual reality involving a crew member from the last Icarus - who appears to have mutated as a result of his isolation and gone mad – and the final attempt to see the mission through and power up the sun again to save humanity. I really felt that in the last part the movie started to go down hill and it didn’t feel right - the whole supernatural god idea. While I am sure it was an interesting and 'bright' (sorry couldn't resist) set of ideas I really felt that a simpler and more understandable ending would have been fitting.
Sunshine reminded me of Apollo 13 in more ways than one. Being a space movie, Apollo 13 was a movie made for men as a chick flick is made for women. It was about a true story of a group of intelligent and highly dedicated men who despite having to fight for their survival, manage to solve near impossible problems and do so with the very essence of male friendship and teamwork. Sunshine evolved from Apollo 13 in that the cgi was exponentially sexed up and the special effects etc. The mission had great potential for intelligent problem solving and what’s more than that, great potential for a prime example of the excellence of men when it comes to being the keepers of judgement of humanity for the good or bad – in this case good or salvation.
But it was not to be.
Sunshine takes a step back when it comes to the portrayal of men – in terms of sympathy for example. While their thunder is not necessarily stolen by the two female characters, the men in this film as not given a very positive image. In Apollo 13 the men managed to work as a team and get past all the anger that was caused by the challenges, tense situations and especially sacrifice.
In this movie the men are fighting over who will survive and seem to hate each other, making resentful comments and getting into fights over the most trivial matters and eventually the most important matters. The extremely potent teamwork and friendship as seen in Apollo 13 would be far more likely that what we see in this movie.
Early on in the film we see the central man, Capa break into a childish fight with Mace over a trivial thing and Cassie, the one of the two woman who I did not like, uttered the typical: “We have an outbreak of manliness,” or something along these lines – showing women as the mature, grown up professionals who are sick of these 'boys with toys.' It was a completely unnecessary thing to say and was really petty and intruding. If the world was threatened by the sun I am nearly 100 percent sure there would be no women on such a voyage – they’d be considered far too valuable and be protected at all costs on the planet. This is what makes this movie in spite of all its realism backed up by cgi, obvious fantasy.
Cassie herself was unnecessary. She mocked all the things men stand for and risk their lives for with all of their creative ‘testosterone.’ She contributes little compared to the other characters, conveniently being the pilot so as she is in expendable compared to the male characters and her pessimism and whining at times made her more of a liability than an asset. She was the typical politically correct ‘decoration’ and violation of men’s territories. The way she said goodbye, we love you to the medical doctor who volunteers to leave himself behind was so devoid of emotion and fake. The whole romance idea between her and Capa is a very bad one for a space mission where lives are risked and chivalry can make spontaneous irrational decisions capable of overwriting the importance of saving mankind. I am not saying women should not be allowed into space movies no questions asked – just not to make her role so annoying. Michelle Yeoh’s character was tolerable enough – she is professional enough and even likeable. I also knew that since Capa was the most charismatic and that he was quite intimate with Cassie that he would be the last to survive. I could never tell what order the others would die (other than the first would be male) but I knew he would be the one to reflect on his life in the last 20min of the movie. They were all tall, young and Hollywood movie star look-alikes when the crew aboard a real spacecraft on a real mission like this one would be older and far more experienced, but again we can tell the good guys from the bad. The ones that were assholes all died with little punch behind it other than interesting methods of death e.g. Ghostship airlock breaking. The man who is not or is least an asshole i.e. is liked by the female characters is always the most likely to survive.
SPOILER END
Overall this movie was ok but not great. It had potential to be excellent and I am not just talking about the failure of the last part to satisfy. I am talking about something very important to me and how even a small dosage of feminist influence/political correctness can ruin my movie. Its like the poison of a black mamba. Had it been shorter with a better finale and the pointless fighting between the male characters and the 'comment' by the woman removed, I would have given this a much higher score, held back only by its diffculty to watch. A good movie though that is worth watching if you are into the sci-fi space genre.
For violent content and language.
Runtime: 107min
2/4
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