The sun is dying, and the crew of Icarus II must deliver a nuclear bomb to restart the sun and save the solar system in “Sunshine.” (Photo credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Doyle’s ‘Sunshine’ gorgeous in its portrayal of doomsday scenario
The end is just a blink away — and Danny Boyle couldn’t be having himself a better time.
In his stunningly beautiful, startlingly spooky science-fiction thriller, “Sunshine,” director Boyle sings us a tale of apocalypse at our very doorstep, utilizing his skills to set up arresting dire straits and engrossing experiences. This is thanks, in large part, to Boyle’s use of sci-fi enigmas, inlculding “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Alien.”
The problem perplexing our spacefarers: Our sun is dying, growing ever dimmer, slowly dooming the solar system to a frigid demise. The manned spaceship is charged with delivering a nuclear payload to the surface of the sun. The hope is the bomb will trigger a spark — a big bang, if you will — that will restart the sun, saving the earth.
At least that’s the plan in “Sunshine,” which contends with questions regarding ethics, rationality, science and more. Though not at first, when our crew is content with reading some displays and generally being bored as the ship does the work. Some angst is visible, though, through what Cassie (Rose Byrne) calls an “excess of manliness” between Capa (Cillian Murphy) and Mace (Chris Evans). When the psychiarist Searle (Cliff Curtis), we’re actually left more disturbed. It seems the ship’s shrink has a penchant for staring into the ever-closer sun.
To which the crew is getting closer on a ship named … Icarus II. To whoever that this was clever, the irony is not lost. Speaking of lost, the II designation refers to the lost Icarus, the first spacecraft sent to rekindle the sun. It went missing sever years before Icarus II launched. But while slingshotting around Mercury, II picks up a distress call from I.
So the crew — Cassie, Capa, Mace, Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), Trey (Benedict Wong) and Harvey (Troy Garity) — contends with what to do. And like the myth of Icarus tells us, these all-too-human spacefarers, who hold the power of the gods in their hands, risk is sure to follow.
And director Boyle makes you watch as the risk takes place. Talented in his ability to entertain, Boyle will have you squirming before long, though perhaps not emotively. “Sunshine” has a few jump factors to it, but it’s not particularly deep.
But what it lacks in depth is more than made up for with well-done technical work. The editing is brisk, the cameras appropriately invasive and sound aptly disturbing. As the ship careens ever closer to its fiery destination, the world seems to fall apart, perhaps unsurprisingly.
As we sail through space, that’s not the only thing that falls apart. I guess Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland weren’t contend with just having the sun be the enemy here. (As if it weren’t enough.) We’re introduced to a character with philosophical misgivings regarding the mission, which starkly contrast with our Icarus II’s crew. It’s disappointing in the worst way because the character is completely unnecessary. We were enjoying the movie for its visceral physicality, not its intellectual stimulations. And that was OK, because Boyle excels at the former, and he has the ability to arrest your strained eyes (the fluctuating lights in this movie are obscene) with swaths of gold and dots of blue.
And all that color tells the real story: beauty and death. For “Sunshine” is nothing if not a beautiful, fiery mess of humans willing to blow themselves up to save what they hold dear. Maybe we’re watching beauty in death. Who cares. I’m too busy staring at the sun.
Four shiny stars out of five, and a critic’s pick.
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