The dream team behind zombie revivalist hit 28 Days Later – director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland and ace thespian Cillian Murphy – reunite for a metaphysical speculative spectacle. This can only be a good thing.
Visibly curtseying before Solaris and 2001, Sunshine is unlikely to be confused with your average ray-gun blaster. The year is 2057 and our Sun is dying. As the Earth freezes over, we have one hope, the Icarus II, a spacecraft hoping to detonate a massive nuclear device to reignite our nearest star.
The nature of the crew will come as little surprise to fans of science fiction or indeed anyone who has ever caught an episode of original Trek. Sanada is the noble captain, Wong, the nervy mathematician. Cillian Murphy is the physicist turned unlikely action hero. Chris Evans is the reckless one. Yeoh and Byrne are the obligatory hot chicks. And so on.
Sunshine, however, utilises these space opera staples to dally with The Last Question: can we do anything about the heat death of the universe?
For the first two brilliant acts, the film successfully dresses this cosmic inquiry as a sleek popcorn entertainment. Sadly, Alex Garland’s script (understandably) doesn’t have any answers. The final reel – a gallimaufry of Alien quotations and implausibility – plunges the film into precisely the sort of darkness the brave crew seeks to combat. Sure, it’s traditional for the sci-fi epic to take us to trippy places. But a mess is a mess and drugs were cheaper when Kubrick was shooting in 1968.
That said, you have to love most of Mr. Boyle’s latest venture. You’re unlikely to see any film this gorgeous any time soon. And unless I’ve got Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 all wrong, no other 2007 flick will take on entropy and win. Sort of.