“SUNSHINE” (2007)

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Benedict Wong, Mark Strong, Paloma Baeza, Archie Macdonald, Sylvia Macdonald & Chipo Chung (voice)
Written by Alex Garland
Directed by Danny Boyle

Polly Staffle Rating: ****

Overall, 2007 was a pretty weak year for films. If you were to ask me who was to blame, I’d have to point the finger at the mainstreaming of genre cinema. Horror films became viciously infected with viruses known as “torture porn” and “remake/sequel hell” several years ago. The contamination slowly began to seep into all movies. Now there is no escaping it. The horror elements of “run an original idea into the ground” and “mean-spiritedness” have meshed with Hollywood’s ongoing attempts at big budget art house films, their influences from exploitation land (a la Quentin Tarantino) and no-budget guerrilla campaigning (“The Blair Witch Project”). The results, as we have seen, weren’t good and 2008 looks to bring more of the same.

With that being said, it was good to see that three of the better, most empowering, visually stunning and original films of the year emerged from genre filmmaking. The horror genre gave us “30 Days of Night” – the best scary movie in 33 years. From the world of fantasy came “300” – the best sword and sandal feature since “Clash of the Titans.” Lastly, the realm of science fiction blew us away with the $40 million British-made masterpiece “Sunshine.” Aside from all three films being from different branches of the genre cinema tree, this trio also carries similar themes on different scales. Instead of each man for himself, this batch of movies focuses on man giving himself for the better of the many.

In “30 Days of Night,” a character sacrifices himself to vampires so the few surviving town’s people of Barrow, Alaska can live out their lives. In “300,” outnumbered Spartan soldiers hold off a mighty Persian army that is invading Sparta. Though the soldiers all die and the battle is lost, their actions show the other Spartans what they are capable of and inspires them to win the war. In “Sunshine,” the stakes are higher than the first two films combined. The number of individuals giving of themselves is eight. The number of people they are trying to save is close to seven billion.

Directed by Danny Boyle, “Sunshine” takes place 50 years in the future. The film opens 16 months into the mission of a team of astronauts, who are hoping to save planet Earth. “Our sun is dying,” physicist Capa says in the film’s opening narration. “Mankind faces extinction.” When the crew blasted off, the planet was deep into an everlasting winter. They’re now aboard a space station with a giant bomb attached to it. Their job is to launch the nuclear weapon into the sun in hopes of reigniting it, creating a star within a star.

Seven years before them a similar mission failed. That space craft was named Icarus, which probably doomed them from the get go as Icarus was an unlucky character of Greek Mythology that crashed and burned when he flew too close to the sun with a pair of wings made of feathers and wax. Despite better technology, the Icarus crew lost communication with Earth and was never heard from again.

Not learning from the first crew’s bad name choice that foreshadowed their failure, the current spaceship is named Icarus II. The chances of this crew succeeding is slim. (Everyone knows sequels rarely ever top the originals.) The chances of them returning home is even slimmer. Despite this, Icarus II forges ahead with the crew showing very little fear.

“By the time you get this message, I’ll be in the dead zone,” Capa says in a message he is sending back home. “It came a little sooner than we thought. But this means you won’t be able to send a message back. So, I just want you to know I won’t need the message because I know everything you want to say. Just remember, it takes eight minutes for light to travel from sun to Earth, which means you will know we’ve succeeded about eight minutes after we deliver the payload. All you have to do is look out for the extra brightness in the sky. So if you wake up one morning and it’s a particularly beautiful day, you’ll know we made it.”

Though the set up for “Sunshine” might sound like a typical no-brainer Hollywood sci-fi action film, it unfolds more like a morality play. When the Icarus II nears Mercury, they discover a distress signal from Icarus I. Is the other crew still alive? Are there supplies on board the other ship that they can use? Is the payload still intact? Should they go off course and rendezvous with the ship and find out the answer to these questions or continue their path as planned? This crossroads becomes the first of many the crew and its members must make a decision on. Each time a decision needs to be made, the choice taken always ends up being the one that will benefit the most people. So “Sunshine” is a true sci-fi movie in that it explores the future of science being used to better mankind. However, at the same time, it is more concerned with human emotions, interactions, morals, philosophy and psychology than it is with any possible future science.

Aside from the film’s thematics, this bad boy is also a beautiful looking and sounding work of art. Alwin Küchler’s cinematography is top notch, and the score from John Murphy and Underworld duo Karl Hyde and Rick Smith is Oscar worthy, making this a “2001: A Space Odyssey” for the 2000’s.

Cillian Murphy (“28 Days Later,” “Red Eye,” “Batman Begins”) leads the excellent ensemble cast that features Rose Byrne (“28 Weeks Later,” “Wicker Park,” “Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones,” “City of Ghosts”), Chris Evans (“TMNT,” “Fantastic Four,” “Not Another Teen Movie”), Cliff Curtis (“Training Day,” “Blow,” “Fracture,” “10,000 B.C.”) and Hiroyuki Sanada (“Ringu”).

Personally, I’ve always felt director Danny Boyle was extremely overrated. Though I enjoyed his films “Shallow Grave” and “The Beach,” I was let down with “28 Days Later” and really didn’t care at all for “Trainspotting.” But he more than made up for any past disappointments with “Sunshine.” It, like “300” and “30 Days of Night,” is such a breath of fresh air among the ugly and nasty movies that have been released lately.

“I want my films to be life-affirming,” Boyle has been quoted as saying. “I want people to leave the cinema feeling that something’s been confirmed for them about life.” Boyle accomplished this and more with “Sunshine.” His film leaves you with the feeling that humans, given the chance, will sacrifice themselves for the well being of others. It also shows genre filmmaking doesn’t have to deliver cruelty for cruelty’s sake in order to thrill modern day audiences.

- CCF, February 2008