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To Boldly Go Where Others Have Been
The Scotsman
1 April 2007
By Allan Hunter
It is almost two years since Sunshine went into production. Several opening dates have been announced and cancelled, rumours have swirled and the lengthy delay has only led us to expect the worst.
There is some relief, therefore, in reporting that the latest collaboration between Trainspotting director Danny Boyle and novelist/screenwriter Alex Garland is no disaster. It is a thoughtful, low-key exercise in doomsday science-fiction where the science and the humanity take precedence over the pyrotechnics. Alas, it is also deeply derivative, filling the screen with visual and aural reminders of every vintage science-fiction title that has preceded it from 2001 to Alien, Silent Running and Soylent Green. Well made and entirely watchable, it is unlikely to win any awards for originality.
The guiding intention behind Sunshine appears to have been the creation of a European-style riposte to the gung-ho belligerence of a typical Hollywood blockbuster. Sunshine is more Solaris than Armageddon, more existential angst than do-or-die heroics as it follows the final stages of a mission to reignite a dying Sun 50 years in the future. There is a mixed group of nationalities, skills and temperaments on board Icarus II as it heads towards the Sun, armed with a massive bomb that will be launched into the heart of the fading star. The hope is that the explosion will reignite the star and that new life can be created from old. It is the last chance for humanity and we learn that nobody knows the fate of the Icarus I, a similar mission seven years earlier that did not succeed.
Anyone who has seen an episode of Star Trek or a film like Event Horizon will know what to expect from Sunshine. It is a tale of sacrifice and wonderment in which the modest crew of eight are each confronted with their own mortality and their own insignificance in the wider universe. Tempers will flare, people will die and you can be pretty certain that the oxygen-supplying garden will suffer and that the fate of the Icarus I will not remain a mystery for long. Everything that you might readily predict (in advance) duly comes to pass.
Sunshine is distinguished by what we don't see. There are no scenes of mission control back home on planet earth. There are no moments at key landmarks on Earth as people await news of the mission and whether it is successful. It creates its own claustrophobic world and stays within it. The only contact with Earth comes in the personal messages that the crew record before they enter a distance from which communication is impossible. The only shot on Earth is a wintry landscape with a glimmer of watery sunshine.
You can appreciate the thought behind the Sunshine story but also glimpse the tensions between its lofty cerebral ambitions and its more mundane visceral instincts. Crew members are beguiled by some of the sights they encounter and feel the heavy spiritual weight of the mission. If ever there was a time to ask why are we here and are we the only form of intelligent life in the universe then it is on a mission like this.
Presumably the studio financing such a venture also required a little action for their money and will remember the disastrous box-office fate of the Steven Soderbergh/George Clooney Solaris remake. Boyle and Garland are obliged to provide high drama and some degree of tension as crew members are forced to effect emergency repairs outside the craft, damage is sustained, and the oxygen supply dwindles to a degree that it will not support the eight members who are on board. To save the whole of humanity, individual lives must be sacrificed and it all comes down to how easily people accept that they are expendable.
The more conventional aspect of the story comes with the discovery of the Icarus I and the elusive character of the ship's rogue captain Pinbacker (Mark Strong), who has grown to enjoy his solitary relationship with God and his status as the last man standing (echoes of Richard Matheson's sci-fi classic I Am Legend). Saving the planet is definitely no longer on his agenda but his actions and presence are handled in a fashion that lacks clarity or impact. It is almost as if Boyle is too concerned with creating something deep and meaningful and is therefore reluctant to lower his guard and also provide some old-fashioned thrills and spills. The plot possibilities are there but the director lacks the will to follow them through.
Steering clear of superstar names, Boyle has assembled a cast of rising talents and solid international performers that includes Cillian Murphy as sensitive physicist Capa, Michelle Yeoh as biologist Corazon, Hiroyuki Sanada as the captain Kaneda, and The Fantastic Four's Chris Evans as Mace.
They all perform effectively within the limits of an ensemble script and there is some nice dry humour. As testosterone threatens to ignite another row, Yeoh dryly reports: "We have an excess of manliness breaking out in the com room."
Intelligent and intriguing, Sunshine somehow just lacks the courage of its convictions. It is too conventional, it is too familiar and there are times when it just feels like a well-cast episode of some really cool television series.
