Sunshine

Entertaining but not overwhelming, Sunshine is clearly a film that ought to have stretched its conceptual hands further toward greatness but, like Icarus, came a bit too close to the sun for its own good. Not to be confused with Istvan Szabo’s masterful multigenerational tale of a Hungarian Jewish family amidst the tumult of the 20th Century, Danny Boyle’s Sunshine has the chameleon-like auteur of some of the UK's most audacious contemporary films here crafting an eerily effective sci-fi drama. Sadly, it cops out to genre thrills in its final act but shows glimpses of the transcendent experience it yearns to be. Featuring Cillian Murphy as a nuclear physicist on board a spaceship whose mission is to detonate a nuclear device in the Sun in order to restart the dying star and thus save humanity in the year 2050, the film is a dwindling crew thriller of the first order for about an hour. Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, and Benedict Wong round out a terrific cast, but one wonders why they weren’t give a little more to work with.

The philosophical issues that the narrative brings to the surface are only given cursory treatment before the film switches into “what could possibly go wrong next” phase, and as we realize that no one will survive, the existential dread and meaningful sacrifice that the film could trade on is replaced by horror shocks. Boyle re-teams with 28 Days Later scribe Alex Garland, producer Andrew MacDonald, and star Cillian Murphy to produce something that feels sharply executed (Alwin Kuchler’s lensing and Mark Tildesley’s production design are outrageously good) but empty in the way that Boyle’s films often. Even as this film contemplates the end of the Milky Way galaxy and humanity with it, there’s no there, there.

Although its sharp left turn into the realm of slasher movie isn’t surprising from a commercial point of view, it remains a stunningly inept miscalculation. Did Boyle & Co. think surprise and terror we’re more interesting than the doomed crews final moments of approach, they're dreams, fears and forever unrealized desire, you know, the human stuff? That's always more interesting than mad men with charred skin wielding knives, but don't ask our friends at Fox Searchlight. I'm sure Rupert's indiewood operations has a few development types whose notes told Mr. Garland, whose writing usually displays a steady integrity even while jumping headlong into genre tales, a different story altogether.

                                                       Brandon Harris