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Intriguing Tale: Sunshine

Sunshine

Genre: Sci-fi thriller
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans
Storyline: A manned spacecraft gets on the job of igniting the dying Sun.

Bottomline: A decent space odyssey with enough philosophy about mortality and morality.

The Sun is having some problems and its ramifications lead to its ‘cold shouldering’ Planet Three, literally. The inevitable climate change that signifies doom for mankind sets the spacecraft, Icarus II, with a team of eight astronauts on a mission to launch a bomb into the Sun and make it get back its healthy glow.

Evidently, the makers of ‘Sunshine’ take perverse pleasure in the irony of the name of the craft.

The funny thing is, after Icarus I (on the same mission) disappeared off the radar seven years ago, you think they would learn not to name the craft after a mythological character whose undoing was flying too close to the Sun.

While they are cruising towards their destination, they pick up what sounds like whales mating on Nat Geo, and it turns out to be… Icarus I! (This isn’t a spoiler; of course you know Craft One would show up).

Through the journey, our brave space travellers are presented with several moral decisions, all wrapping up in the ultimate goal — saving the Sun.

There is the inevitable argument about God and humanity versus Science and humanity, but this is presented weakly, as the filmmaker’s priority is science.

Interestingly, he uses a strong biblical allegory about the saviour of mankind.

In this case saviours who will sacrifice their lives to save humanity.

The action fills out nicely in an intriguing tale by writer Alex Garland, who has collaborated with director Danny Boyle previously in ‘The Beach’ and ‘28 Days Later.’

Sci-fi fans should be satiated with all the techie talk about delivering the payload and reviving a dying star. And then there are those fabulous spacesuits with their shimmering gold fabric that Michael Jackson would kill for.

The special effects are something else — at one point a frozen human hits a wall and explodes into shards of red like a cherry Popsicle.

You may want to keep impressionable children away from this, there will also be a mutant-like thing wandering around later.

The last bit of ‘Sunshine’ is the downer — it degenerates into one of those 1990s’ slasher teen flicks that dumbs down the otherwise cerebral aura of the film.

Watch out for Cillian Murphy, the cutest import from Ireland since Colin Farrell.

SUSAN MUTHALALY

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