Sunshine

Review by Vives Anunciacion


Lux aeterna
Directed by Danny Boyle
Written by Alex Garland
Starring Chris Evans, Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh
PG13/ 98 minutes
Fox Searchlight
*** (3 stars)

When the sun goes dark, it’s the end of trips to the beach. That’s enough reason to rage against the dying of the light.

In a million million years the sun will bloat into an enormous, fat red dwarf, before collapsing into a small lifeless mass called a white dwarf. In Danny Boyle’s new sci-fi thriller Sunshine, there are no million million years but only fifty – in 2057, eight astronauts are sent into space on a mission to detonate a fission device that will re-ignite the already dying sun. Pass muna, Boracay.

Tweaking science a little in order to make an exciting space oddity, crewmembers of the space station Icarus 2 must overcome personal doubt and cosmic challenges in order to deliver their mission. At the core of Sunshine’s journey is the way humans deal with separation and loneliness, especially when you’re millions of miles away from your loved ones.


The movie begins with the mission already months into space, cabin fever and nerves getting into each crewmember of Icarus 2. Hiroyuki Sanada (The Ring) is Kaneda, captain of the multi-racial team of scientists composed of mission physicist Capa (Cilian Murphy, from Batman Begins) pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne, from Troy), engineer Mace (Chris Evans, of Fantastic Four) biologist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger), comm officer Harvey (Troy Garity), doctor and psychologist Searle (Cliff Curtis) and navigator Trey (Benedict Wong). Interestingly, the movie’s website explains why Corazon is called Corazon – she is of Chinese-Filipino descent.

(Spoiler warning!) Midway into the mission, the crew of Icarus 2 intercepts a radio signal from the failed first Icarus mission – which disappeared years before. The horror begins as soon as the crew of Icarus 2 decides to intercept Icarus 1 as accident after accident test their skills for survival and sanity in space.

It’s not the first time that Boyle tackles morality and religion in his movies. His last movie, Millions, featured a boy who can talk to saints and a luggage full of money literally falling from the sky. Most memorable sci-fi movies deal with the same issues, and it’s not surprising that Sunshine melds a little of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the original Solaris and Contact into the story. But overall it’s still a thriller more than a philosophical space trip, which makes it more like the horrific Event Horizon. A little too much like it, to be exact.

Of the eight crewmembers of Icarus 2, the interactions between Capa, Mace, Cassie and Corazon are the most narratively significant, and the clashes between Capa’s passiveness and Mace’s physical aggression are the most developed characters in the story and the most emotionally involving. Evans in particular delivers strongly, only because his character is the most pronounced. But that means the rest of the show is thin character-wise, its drama is in the characters’ suffering.

Visually, as with most Danny Boyle movies, lighting is out of this world. The design is disappointing for a sci-fi movie, as it looks great with the outer space scenes but bland with the interior Icarus scenes.

Sunshine may not be the best sci-fi adventure/ thriller to come out in years but is still a strong addition to Boyle’s splendid resume.

On a particularly beautiful day, this is just an ordinary okay movie. But on an ordinary day, Sunshine is a particularly good one.