Sunshine

July 20 2007

Sunshine is a new film from Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later).

Quote:

The Sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. Soon the crew are fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

Cast:
Rose Byrne
Cliff Curtis
Chris Evans
Troy Garity
Cillian Murphy
Hiroyuki Sanada
Mark Strong
Benedict Wong
Michelle Yeoh

Official Film Website

Trailer 1

4 minute extended trailer

1 minute clip

It looks amazing, and I'm excited to see Cillian Murphy in a non-creepy role.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I added the 4 minute extended trailer to the OP. It looks better and better everytime I watch it. I just wish it didn't have so many spoilers. Watch at your own risk.

Oh also, they've nailed down the US release date to July 20th.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by chaofan

I thought Sunshine was very well directed and was very tense. Danny Boyle's take on sci-fi is like what 28 Days Later is to zombie movies: it runs with the conventions of the genre, but adds a human layer to it. The performances are great as well, and the CG in some scenes are marvelous.

Sounds awesome.
The extended trailer really got me pumped for the movie. It looks like they added the human condition from Alien (things keep going wrong but we have to hold on) and threw it into a mission to save the solar system.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, apparently it's only opening in "Selected Cities" now.

It isn't even showing in Detroit.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

So.
The DVD just released in America and I was finally able to see this film.

This amazing film.

It sucked me in and didn't let go until the very end. I'd post detailed impressions but I feel that this user at IMDB has the film nailed down:

IMDB user's impressions of Sunshine:

Sunshine cost £20 million. Jerry Bruckheimer and his Hollywood cohorts must be shaking their head in disbelief. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, British born and bred, have outdone America's effects laden finest, and at a mere fraction of the price. Armageddon ($140 million) and Pirates of The Caribbean 2 ($225 million) have nothing, nothing on the majestic visuals that Sunshine offers. From the jaw dropping opening sequence to the fantastically realised final moments, Boyle's latest is a mighty treat for the eyes.

But of course, effects do not make a film. You need only consider the two aforementioned Bruckheimer blowouts for proof. But happily, behind the blinding visuals, Sunshine has a violently beating heart. One that offers absolutely no let up, that gains speed and then gains a little more, before finally threatening cardiac arrest. You can't help but live and breath every moment of the crew's breathless existence.

The year is 2057 and a select group of astronauts are given that most trifling of tasks. The sun is dying. Drop a bomb in it. Save all of mankind. And to top it all, on a ship rather ominously named 'Icarus II'. Add inevitable inter crewmember tension and you have a rather heated situation. The sweaty crew are played wonderfully by a decidedly un-starry, but talented cast. Cilian Murphy, taking the lead role as the ship's resident physicist Cappa, the only member who has the wherewithal to actually drop the bomb, is coolly enigmatic as ever, the blue orbs of his eyes forming a nice counterpoint to the never far rather redder orb of the sun. You can't help but feel he isn't particularly challenged as an actor, but nevertheless he provides a suitably ambivalent, androgynous and faintly unsettling core to the proceedings.

Perhaps more impressive is Chris Evans. Recently seen in a similarly hot headed role in the undercooked comic book adaptation 'Fantastic Four', he consistently snatches scenes from Murphy as engineer Mace, about as volatile and fiery as Cappa is composed and cool. Without Evan's energetic performance, the film would sink into an anti-libidinal quag. Mace's emotive instability injects pace when it's needed and brings some welcome variety to the otherwise glum faces. Evans is surely on the brink of big things. A small quibble would be that there are perhaps a few too many characters; meaning that a fair share of the cast never really gets a chance for development, which is irritating, as one gets the feeling that there's a lot of wasted potential.

Another chink in Sunshine's spacesuit, is in many places, Alex Garland's screenplay. Whilst he has a remarkable talent for creating intense psychological tension, of which there is plenty in Sunshine, his philosophizing is much less satisfactory. This is not to say he doesn't play with some fascinating ideas. With the crew circling so close to the Sun, to the giver of life, Garland begins ask the biggest of questions. Is there something, something inestimably greater than ourselves, something that could create such a magnificent star, or are we, like the sun, simply dust? It's a great idea, but for the larger part of the film, it seems oddly shoehorned into what is at base a sci-fi pot-boiler. In fact these ideas are better expressed in Boyle's imagery. Time and time again we see members of the crew staring aghast at the immensity of the burning ball of gas and dust in front of them. The relationship between giver and taker is better explored here than in any line of Garland's.

Sunshine is Danny Boyle's best film, hands down. Yeah sure, I might be a little more biased towards science fiction than, say, heroin-addled youths, but wow is Sunshine one hell of a movie.

Skexis, you're right about the sounds and visuals. I was lucky enough to watch the film on an HDTV with a premium surround sound system and it floored me. But I kept thinking that I've heard the music somewhere before...eh oh well. It was awesome either way.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by K_ Takahashi

Since this go zero media attention I had no clue about this film and thought it was a direct-to-video deal.

Which is sad, too.
I think it just wasn't distributed well in America because there were too many American "blockbusters" in the theaters already.
The studio releasing it in the US probably figured it wasn't going to make much many because it was sci-fi or something stupid like that.

It's like what they did with Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men, two fantastic films that more people should have been made aware of and had the opportunity to see in the theater. But because they weren't made in the US then they were just pushed aside and placed in limited release until they came out on DVD.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?