Oct 21, 2011

Wiwille's movie reviews part 81

It's hard to imagine with how plugged in our society is that a big budget modern movie would fly beneath my radar. Such is the case with "Sunshine", which I never heard of, or forgot existed, until Tad demanded reviews of every film on this list.
I turned on the film yesterday not knowing what to expect. "Sunshine" tells the story of eight astronauts on a mission to save the dying sun, and ultimatley give humanity a chance to survive. The crew come across a ship that was long thought destroyed, but had the same mission. In their attempt to reconnect with the other crew everything goes wrong and the mission is jeopardized.
The film works as intellignet sci-fi for the first two acts. The dialogue feels genuine and the visuals are a treat. The third act descends into a cheap horror thriller and how the screenwriters thought they could blend the two is a mystery. The suspense for most of the film works though as the characters are shocking real and never take me out of the story. Danny Boyle creates a few gems in his career and this particular one is largely overlooked. At times it's a thinking person's sci-fi film, which I loved, and at others it's an action piece that drags the story. Stillm the visuals are compelling and it really puts the viewer into the world of space travel, and for that I would recommend it. If the film just centered it's third act around the natural elements being the real antagonist, I would've like it better.
Thanks to Tad for submitting this. Wanna see a film reviewed by Wiwille? Drop me an email or comment and you'll see it soon on One Bad Apple. Rules are posted here.

"So, anyway, younger girls won't like this movie, unless they know what happens under an automobile hood. Younger boys won't like it because the only thing that's possibly going to blow up real good is the sun. But science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there's a lot going on up there, and we can't even define precisely what a soliton is." - Roger Ebert

1 comment:

Adrian said...

I have to say when I saw Sunshine, I was initially intrigued with the premise of the movie, but then it looked like the producer/director of the movie just got bored and turned it into a horror flick. It's a shame really.