Sunshine (2007)0

In the not too dis­tant future, Earth’s clos­est star is dying. In 2050, human­ity sends a space­craft, the Icarus I, along with a gigan­tic explo­sive pay­load to be det­o­nated in the cen­tre of the sun to jump-start it, to cre­ate “a star within a star.” Both the Icarus I and the bomb dis­ap­pear in space with­out a trace and the mis­sion is not com­pleted. 7 years later, the new Icarus II takes off from earth, now struck by a solar win­ter, with a crew of 8 ready to deliver a sec­ond pay­load to the cen­tre of the sun and save mankind. 8 astro­nauts and all humanity’s hopes strapped to the back of a bomb the size of Manhattan. Welcome to Sunshine.

Sunshine is a 2007 sci­ence fic­tion action/thriller/horror movie. Directed by Academy Award win­ner Dannie Boyle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire), with an ensem­ble cast includ­ing Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins), Rose Byrne (Troy), Chris Evans (Fantastic 4), Michelle Yeo (The Mummy: Tomb of The Dragon Emperor) and Hiroyuki Sanada (Rush Hour 3), Sunshine blows me away with it’s story,  char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, cin­e­matog­ra­phy, edit­ing, and sound. The theme is rather cliché: a doomsday-esque dis­as­ter threat­ens human­ity and a group of friends try and save the world. The story is entirely dif­fer­ent in the sense that we’re now talk­ing about the sun and the fact that even if these peo­ple suc­ceed in deliv­er­ing the pay­load, they may not be able to get home safely and the pay­load may not even work. Another way the film defies con­ven­tions of other dooms­day films is that it begins 16 months after the launch of the Icarus II, not before. Thus, it is implied that the crew already know each other rel­a­tively well. And it spares no expense at show­ing the ten­sions and con­flicts between crewmem­bers when in such a com­plex and inti­mate rela­tion­ship with each other. This film does well in char­ac­ter devel­op­ment. It high­lights each character’s role in the team, how each char­ac­ter makes deci­sions and their phys­i­o­log­i­cal traits– very inter­est­ing to watch. The inte­rior of the Icarus II is mostly lit in bright, low con­trast light­ing, espe­cially the obser­va­tion room, holo­graph room, gar­den and the walk­ways. It is the out­side of the ship that is lit by the harsh high-contrast light of the sun. This cre­ates a really cool con­trast between the dan­ger of the sun and the safety of the space­ship– until things go awry and the space­ship no longer becomes a place of safety (or of high-key light­ing). Dutch angles are used in the cramped con­fines of the ship to sug­gest dis­com­fort and the claus­tro­pho­bia that doesn’t go away even after 16 months onboard. In extremely piv­otal scenes, close-up reac­tion shots are used to plunge the audi­ence into the heat of the sit­u­a­tion. Tracking shots trans­port the audi­ence right into the per­spec­tives of the crew as they encounter dan­ger, dis­com­fort, hope, and unimag­in­able hor­ror. Sunshine is incred­i­bly fast paced for a sci­ence fic­tion film, almost as if it was edited to be an action movie, which is the pre­dom­i­nant style of edit­ing here. Some shots appear only for a few frames, warn­ing the viewer of the dan­ger to come. There is lots of inter­cut­ting in this movie, empha­siz­ing the dan­gers of falling into the sun that par­al­lel the dan­gers of being onboard a huge space­ship in the mid­dle of nowhere. At times, the fast edit­ing is a dis­tinct con­trast to the slow, calm pace of the char­ac­ters strug­gling to find com­fort in each other, work­ing onboard the ship in their respec­tive dis­ci­plines, and try­ing to for­give each other before it’s too late to do so. Sometimes, at the most action packed scenes, there are freeze frames that allow the audi­ence an odd glimpse into the sit­u­a­tion that could spell dis­as­ter for the entire mis­sion, extremely uncon­ven­tional for a sci­ence fic­tion movie, but effec­tive for one that defies con­ven­tions. The sound edit­ing and sound­track left me drown­ing in a sea of ecstasy. As a per­son who enjoys lis­ten­ing to movie sound­tracks, the sun­shine sound­track was a bor­der­line sex­ual expe­ri­ence. The sound effects used were incred­i­bly real­is­tic and oozed with fidelity, as if one were really onboard the space­ship lis­ten­ing to an audio trans­mis­sion, or in the vac­uum of space lis­ten­ing to the dis­charge of solar flares from the sun. At some tense scenes, you hear noth­ing but ambi­ent noise and the breath­ing of crewmem­bers as they await doom. During other more inspi­ra­tional scenes, you hear noth­ing but awe-inspiring music even as char­ac­ters scream directly in front of the cam­era, tak­ing in the entire excite­ment and emo­tion of the scene as peo­ple do incred­i­ble things for the sake of human­ity. The sound­track really got me and I was incred­i­bly anx­ious to buy it when it came out in November 2008, more than a year after it’s release due to legal issues. The blend of John Murphy’s orches­tral abil­ity and Underworld’s elec­tronic music left me stunned by the sheer emo­tion that could be con­veyed by the music alone with­out any visu­als. Sunshine is def­i­nitely one of my favourite movies and movie sound­tracks. I would rec­om­mend this to any­one look­ing for a solid sci­ence fic­tion dis­as­ter movie that will stim­u­late the senses with a blend of action, hor­ror and human psy­chol­ogy, and a sound­track worth lis­ten­ing to over and over again for that goosebump-inducing effect. Go watch the movie on HBO and go buy the album on iTunes. I give sun­shine 4.5 out of 5, and so should you.