The last time director Danny Boyle (Millions) and writer Alex Garland (The Beach) collaborated they came up with the genre-redefining 28 Days Later. With the simple innovation of zombies who sprinted after their victims instead of slowly lumbering along towards them, they re-imagined the zombie film. Therefore, one would expect the same innovation from their latest work, the spaceship mission film Sunshine. Did Boyle and Garland do for space what they did for zombies?
Well, not exactly.
Sunshine’s ads make it look as if it’s a derivative mishmash of other spaceship films, and in terms of story it pretty much is, though it is well-executed. What really elevates Sunshine from being an average nightmare-on-a-spaceship film are Danny Boyle’s wildly beautiful visual effects.
The story begins with the small crew of the spaceship Icarus II flying towards the dying sun, hoping to reignite it with a massive bomb and liberate the Earth from a “solar winter.” Unsurprisingly, things do not go smoothly.
But the story’s disasters flow beautifully onscreen under Boyle’s able direction. In stark contrast to the grungy aesthetics of Boyle’s previous films – such as 28 Days Later and Trainspotting – this is a beautiful movie, with vibrant colors – the brilliant oranges of the sun contrasted with the cool neon blues of the ship – and smooth visuals. We also see stunning shots of men in spacesuits looking impossibly small against the expansive, vivid vistas of space.
Garland made a really original film when he wrote 28 Days Later, and it seems he was going for a similar thing here, but he doesn’t really do anything new – it’s just the mix that’s unusual. All the individual elements are familiar: The rebellious A.I. computer (2001: A Space Odyssey), the shortage of oxygen onboard the spaceship (Apollo 13), the mission to shoot some explosives into a space mass (Armageddon, Deep Impact), and even some of the later surprises have been done in other films.
The actors are all solid in roles which aren’t very demanding; this film is not an actor’s showcase. In the lead role is the always watchable Cillian Murphy (Red Eye) as the ship’s physicist Capa. Because his personality is left a bit vague, he doesn’t make the strongest impression. He seems somewhere in between the ruthlessly pragmatic Ace – a broody Chris Evans, (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) toning down his usually high energy here — and the more humanistic sweet-looking Cassie (Rose Byrne, 28 Weeks Later).
It’s not that the film isn’t entertaining – though the first 30-45 minutes is slow – once it picks up, it definitely keeps your attention. But Boyle’s magnificent visuals keep giving the sense there is some deeper message here and, in the end, the actual story doesn’t give that.
There’s a hint of philosophy in the ship psychologist Searle’s (Cliff Curtis, Live Free or Die Hard) obsession with the sun. But while the film hints at philosophy in the script and suggests it with its visuals it doesn’t really commit to any philosophizing.
So what we are left with is a monster-mash of spaceship genre films, albeit a beautiful and well performed one. Sunshine’s not boring and it’s not bad, but it could have been a lot better.
Contact reporter Dan Benamor at diversions@dbk.umd.edu
