I caught this early in the week and I'm very curious as to what others thought. It's a very good attempt at a more serious sci-fi drama in the vein of 2001 or Solaris, except pumped up with the action and suspense that its Wages Of Fear premise suggests. The cast is uniformly excellent. The visuals almost demand the big screen, with detailed production design (love them gold spacesuits) and some very intense special effects. And the editing technique that Boyle uses during the "haunted house" sequence is classic. But, I have an issue that keeps me from totally recommending Sunshine and this problem is just too infested with spoilers...


So.... MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE THIRD ACT


Only meant for those who saw the film... SPOILERS AHEAD!





How in the name of H.G. Clouzot did "Captain Evan Tarizon" get from the old ship to the new ship? Maybe it was explained and I utterly missed it, but this seemly illogical jump into boogeyman land really threw me and the movie never fully recovered. I went from a grim drama about hard choices to this Clive Barker slasher flick... what the hell happened? Any thoughts on this?





SPOILERS END

(Potential minor spoilers, but I think I've avoided specifics... partly because it came out in the UK a few months ago and I don't remember everything)

William, while it obviously didn't impact on my enjoyment and willingness to recommend, I do agree with you regarding the finale and would hold this up as the film's one major flaw. It's particularly annoying in so far as a few extra minutes could have sorted it completely in my opinion. Instead, the last 10-15 minutes feels rushed and I found myself thinking "How did he get there? Where did that person go? Where did that person come from?"

I can only hope there's an extra ten minutes or so cut from the finale that might make it onto a future DVD release.

*SPOILERS*
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I was absolutely blown away by this movie and walked out of the theater shaking. It's easily my favorite film of the year so far....by a wide margin too.

Is it a derivative space thriller? Is it a post-SOLARIS bit of spacey psychobabble? Is it really just a gory slasher dressed up like a middle-brow journey into the heart of darkness (which is, ya know, epitomized by the brightest damned body in our solar system)?

It's all of these things and probably quite a bit more for those adventurous enough to watch it more than once. I actually felt slightly ill towards the climax owing the film's outrageously high level of tension, but that's certainly not a complaint.

There's no doubt that the tone shifts unambiguously into flat-out horror in the last act, but doesn't the movie kind of earn that? When was the last time you saw a horror movie which paces itself so well that it doesn't tip its hand until so late in the game?

Don't we always complain about the shortage of "intelligent horror movies?" Well, what is SUNSHINE if not that? Some of the plot developments strain credulity late in film, but given that that first 2/3 are so solid and that reality starts blurring along with space/time as the crew gets closer to the sun, Boyle and Garland almost provide a veil under which they can suddenly unleash a monster.

And the more you think about what gives rise to the monster, the more you realize they've created a villain worth hating.

Unsurprisingly, this is also where Kevin Smith is going for his first horror film so it's obviously a potent fear to mine.

And what's nice about the conclusion and coda to the film, is that Boyle and Garland remind us that just because a monster threatens to slash through any goodwill the film may have built up, the sense of horror doesn't have to engulf the themes and ultimate catharsis of the movie.

The poignancy at the end is more important than whether or not the "good guys" kill the monster.

I caught this on my lazy Sunday "triple-feature" binge today... I saw SUNSHINE (Amazed!), RESCUE DAWN (Surprisingly underwhelmed) and, uh... I KNOW WHO KILLED ME (best bad movie of 2007, I'll say...).

SUNSHINE was really one of the best movies I've seen in the theatre this year. By far. I was blown away by it. The performances were equally good and the production was epic... for those of you who haven't seen it I have to say this simply MUST be seen in a large widescreen cinema. Really! Does anyone know how much this movie cost to make?

I got chills watching this thing. Knowing how stupid Fox Searchlight has been with their marketing (watch who dies on the "official website"... talk about making people NOT want to see it!), I purposely steered away from everything but the trailer. I'm glad I did because, going in, I really didn't know what the film had in store for me. I agree that it takes a wild turn during the third act, but that was OK by me... I was so jazzed by the first 2/3rds that "Pennywise the Clown" could've appeared and I would've been amazed anyway.

Simply a must see... and a must see in the theatre, too.

One non-plot bit of info on this that I'd like to know... did anyone notice reel-change markers on the prints they saw? I was just curious because, while it was projected on film (I could hear the projector and there were marks and general wear and tear on the film that would defy any sort of "digital projection")... there were absolutely no "cigarette burn" reels breaks ANYWHERE on the print I watched. During a couple big effects sequences there were noticable black splices (actually two would appear on the same frame right before some big FX shots) and, every once in a while, the audio would get louder, then softer, for about 2 seconds or so... Almost as if I was watching some sort of weird variant work print!

I don't recall, in recent memory anyway, ever seeing a film projected WITHOUT the reel change markers. Very strange.

MORE SUNSHINE SPOILERS

There was a recent interview on Twitch with Danny Boyle who explained with great frustration that it's obvious that it happened right before the airlock split.

Tom, I guess my problem is I didn't go to SUNSHINE for a horror movie. There's a great bit early on where one of the characters makes a snarky comment about them getting picked off one by one, and you know it's not going to happen because it's not that kind of movie ... except it becomes exactly that movie. And for a film that I was holding as second to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in my pantheon for the first two-thirds or so, to switch from imaginative speculative sci-fi (a rare treat) to a slasher film.

But it's worth it just for the visuals: I loved the remix in the end credits, which reminded you just how many amazing shots are in this film.

Twitch Article

I also couldn't follow what was happening in the last act. But I was so blown away with the first two acts that my overall impression was positive.

Thanks for the link to the article.

It's apparent that Boyle should have spent more time clearly showing how a certain character got from point to point... and less time pondering pretentious ideas about that character's atoms. His frustration over how supposedly "obvious" things are has not helped my impression of him. A shame, really, as the rest of the film is really good.

Seconded. The incident in question is the one thing that has arisen in almost every single negative response to the movie I've read, so it seems it isn't nearly as obvious to others as it is to Boyle.

Regardless, it's a wonderful movie all the same, and it's probably my favourite film of 2007 so far - certainly top three at least. I just can't wait to see if the repeated viewings afforded to me by the impending DVD release (27 Aug in UK) will make that "obvious" explanation a little more "obvious".

Well, I had no problem figuring out when the character made the move...although I confess it did require a moment's thought. But that still doesn't mean the last half hour didn't suck for me.

I had the day off today and decided to finally catch this. Incidentally, nothing really beats early Monday matinees. It's usually you and two retirees sitting in the back, maybe some shifty-eyed weirdo hovering suspicously near the exit.

It's great! My big goal is to one day have it just be me, though. So that it'll be my own private screening, like I'm Cecil B. Demille or something. I plan on sitting right in the very center of the theater and laughing loudly at everything.

But this. I liked this, but I, ah, um, really wonder about anybody taking it very seriously. It struck me as a conscious throwback to those late Sixties/early Seventies style trippy SF movies, and if that's your thing, man, you'll like really groove on this. But just because one character bathes in light and says things like "you become the light" and "we're all just stardust" that doesn't make it deep. It just makes it silly.

Incredibly beautiful to look at -- here's some smart CGI right here. And I don't know if it's exactly well acted, but it's very well cast. Except frankly I can't buy Cillian whatshisname as anything more than a creepy bad guy -- those eyes, you know. He's not a good "everyman", which is sorta what he's playing here.

The beginning stuff is the strongest, and for awhile it looks like it's gonna be a straight ahead hard sf thriller -- something you don't see much, you know. As the plot starts kicking in it becomes pretty gripping although it starts to lose it's plausibility -- these guys start haplessly bumping into one thing after another ala our heroes in ARMAGEDDON. By the time

SPOILERS

the serial killer comes in we're in definite goofball territory -- no, not for a minute did I buy it, either in a story sense or some grand philosophical sense. How did my hard sf epic turn into HALLOWEEN all of a sudden? The finale brought back memories of THE BLACK HOLE, which I haven't seen in years and years and years but vaguely remember being trippy, too. It's like we're in the center of the universe, man. Are you feelin' it.?

Okay, I"ll stop the Cheech and Chong stuff now. The funny thing is that it's still eminently watchable, even as it slowly goes off the rails and hits a tree. You won't hate it, even though you'll probably be saying "what the #$@@#?" more often than not.

doug

Yeah, that 'Murphy' bit of his handle is a real killer. ;)

:lol:

You're lucky I didn't say

"That guy...you know, the guy."

doug

I cannot really add any new thought to this thread except that I was extremely excited to see this film as 28 DAYS LATER stuck with me tonally for quite some time.

I completely echo the sentiment that the first 2/3 of this picture was terrific and the last act a head-scratcher.

Why Boyle felt the need to veer off into JASON X territory is beyond my comprehension. He had me with...

SPOILER ALERT

...when the female Icarus computer stated that there was an extra crew member of unknown origin on board. That gave me the creeps. Loved it. It could have then gone in a myriad of intelligent directions but failed to do so. Off the top of my head and in my most humble of opinions, I can think of 3 somewhat more interesting paths the story could have then taken us down. A shame something better did not bear out given the sturdiness of the first 2/3.

Regardless, I will continue to lay down boxoffice buck for Boyle.

And I am sure it will hold up better than OUTLAND!

Boy, I don't think this is better than OUTLAND. I don't think it's better than FORBIDDEN WORLD. If Erik didn't already have my ballot, SUNSHINE would be on my Worst 5 of 2007 list. It's a crashing bore until it turns incredibly stupid. Danny Boyle's unsubstantial storytelling skills left me screaming at the TV during the last half hour--"Who th--? What th--? How in th--?" I didn't find anything original in this movie, and I kept myself awake by noting all the better movies Boyle ripped off--"ALIEN. MISSION TO MARS (yes, it's better than SUNSHINE). DARK STAR. STAR TREK. 2001. SILENT RUNNING. Yawn."


SPOILER





I'm still at a loss to comprehend the end of the film. Cillian Murphy is piggybacking a ride into the sun on the back of the bomb, like he's Slim Pickens or something, then suddenly he's inside fighting Freddy Krueger? Setting everything else aside, why would you even bother to fight Freddy Krueger, when you're about to die in a minute and a half anyway? I can barely figure out who Freddy is (I hope Boyle and Alex Garland thanked John Carpenter for inspiring his name), but not how or why he became a killer.

I'm also still trying to figure out why Cliff Curtis had to stay behind to operate the Icarus I's airlock manually, but Cillian Murphy was able to blast the Icarus II's door while standing beside it.

Why does every space movie have to have a scene where the ship is damaged and somebody has to go outside and fix it?

I have to agree with Marty on this one. I netflixed it last night and I couldn't believe how terrible it was. I was really expecting to like it a lot as I have liked Boyle's other films and I remember all the buzz SUNSHINE received during its theatrical release. 2001 is probably my favorite film and I love cerebral sci-fi like SOLARIS and so forth, but this film was total and utter junk. It wasn't just the last third when it turned into Freddy Krueger in space that was bad - it was the whole shebang. I am utterly baffled as to how this film is being heralded as some sort of "intelligent" sci-fi just because some of the visuals look really cool.

By the way, if these seven stupid, juvenile (yes, two of them even get into a fist-fight brawl) astronauts are the best the world can send out into space to save the entire human race, than we are definitely doomed and this film proves it. Not only do they act like high-schoolers, they make a lot of mistakes and basically sabotage their own mission. Duh! And why does the spaceship/computer even need the astronauts on the journey to begin with? It could have been a completely programmed mission as the idiotic astronauts really only get in the way - and it would have been more successful if it had been. When the whole premise of a sci-fi film is teetering on clunky dumb science, than it's hard to care about any of it. And even if you try, the characters are so banal and indistinguishable from each other that you just wish the Sun would burn out so they'd stop talking nonsense and just die. By the time they got to Freddy Krueger, I couldn't help but laugh. Only thing missing was the kitchen sink.
Boy, now even EVENT HORIZON looks good. One of the worst of 2007.

PS - I think I was a bit harsh in my comment that this film was one of the worst of the year. Surely, there were tons of really bad movies aimed at teenagers and other audiences that deserve that award much more than SUNSHINE does.

I was just basing my comment on films that had potential or were praised for being really good, etc. So SUNSHINE was disappointing in that vein, but it is clearly better than most of the generic junk that comes out every week. Unfortunately, most of those other movies don't even attempt to be good. In the case of SUNSHINE, I can feel the good intentions at work which makes its ultimate failure more painful in the end. Still, I'd rather watch something that at least tries and fails than some bland sell-out dumb movie that Hollywood keeps cranking out every week.

Go with your first impulse, Jeff. :) Maybe not the very worst picture of the year but the one that suffered the biggest dropoff in quality from beginning to end.

For the record, here are my 2007 Flop Ten, also on my blog in a January entry:

10) Spider-Man 3
9) Sunshine
8) The Kingdom
7) Dedication
6) Finishing the Game
5) In the Valley of Elah
4) The Brave One
3) Lust, Caution
2) American Gangster
1) Shoot 'Em Up