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Sunshine an Illuminating Take on Sci-Fi

Toronto Sun

20 July 2007

By Liz Braun

We figure there's enough cold and clanking metal and claustrophobia in everyday life to make movies about outer space kind of redundant.

Still, you could make an exception for Sunshine, the Danny Boyle directed drama about a mission to jump-start the sun and save the earth from another ice age. The year is 2057 and the Icarus II speeds toward the sun to deliver a device that all hope will re-ignite the failing star. En route, the crew intercepts a message from Icarus I, the ship that vanished attempting the same trip to the sun seven years earlier. The crew of eight debates whether or not the Icarus II should change course and respond to the call.

The physicist (Cillian Murphy) on Icarus II makes the decision to go, suggesting that if the rendezvous is successful, the mission will have two payloads to deliver instead of just one. But there are hazards involved in that decision, and changing course brings a myriad of problems.

The problems, including lack of oxygen, only increase once the crew of Icarus II discovers what's left of Icarus I. Looks as if the hypnotic attraction of the sun may have unleashed darker forces in humanity.

Sunshine may be set in outer space, but it doesn't lack gravity. Despite the usual peril played out against the usual depressing metal universe that is a space craft, the story becomes an engrossing philosophical drama about fate and the future of mankind. The themes are never black and white. (Last spring, Cillian Murphy described the movie as a battle between science and religion, leaving some to surmise that Murphy may not be too bright. Just a thought.)

The character-driven Sunshine is populated by an ensemble cast that includes Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Benedict Wong, Troy Garity, Chris Evans, and Michelle Yeoh.

While the film has far more emotional life than the genre usually offers, it doesn't lack for action, and it's a thinking-man's sort of action, at that.

The last 30 minutes are a bit puzzling, given all that has gone before—you'll have to see that for yourself‐but Sunshine mostly emphasizes the science in science fiction.

That's a good thing.