Sunshine

It's the year 2057, and the sun is dying. A rogue particle (a Q-Ball) has found it's way inside the sun, slowly shutting it down, and by extension casting the Earth into a dark, deadly winter. A crew of 8 is sent with a massive special bomb that will destroy this particle and, hopefully, restart the sun to save the world. Naturally, things don't go as smoothly as they should, especially once the crew finds the first ship that was sent with the very same mission years before (and never heard from again).

I'm just going to flat-out say that I love this movie. I really, really do. It has some flaws (notably towards the end, which I'll get to shortly), but overall it's a really moving, interesting, and well made movie. It's the kind of sci-fi movie that's more character based, but still manages to pack in plenty of outer spacey stuff to keep things exciting.

At the core of the film are the eight astronauts and their different personalities. Each role is played excellently, with everyone giving their own little quirks and specialties to the characters. Particular mention, I think, goes to Cliff Curtis as the ship's psychiatrist. He's a truly fascinating individual, especially with his obsession with sunlight as the movie progresses.

In fact, the movie's general treatment of light is different than what you would see in most movies (sci-fi, horror, whatever). Just about everything is lit up, and blinding lights of all brightness levels are liberally applied. It's an interesting choice, especially when darkness is usually the go-to light style for things in space. It shows a lot in the design of the ship, which seems much more current-tech and regular modern as opposed to the big, creepy, Gothic horror ships in things like Alien or Event Horizon.

The film is a bit of a cross between a sci-fi drama and thriller/horror, with more of the latter coming in at the end. I can't say much to avoid spoilers, but to say the least it gets a little slasher film (with some shades of the aforementioned Event Horizon popping up). While the movie does it well enough, I think this is one of its drawbacks, as it's better than that. It's a great movie held down by merely good horror bits like that. The end in particular, although it manages to bounce back after nearly... well, I don't want to say ruining the ending, but it went from a moving scene that had me in tears to something just plain unnecessary over the course of a few seconds. Luckily, like I said, it bounced back quite well.

I've heard some criticism about the science of this movie, about how it's The Core in space or something like that. For starters, I really can't understand criticizing a movie like this for accuracy (wrong science? In a sci-fi movie? Unheard of, I know). But it's really better than most people think. The trouble is that this movie seems super-accurate, and when it turns out it isn't quite just so, it seems more off than usual (it was originally far more accurate, but dramatic license was taken for audience benefit and to make for a better movie). This paragraph is a needless rant, I know, I'm just saying.

In short, it's a great movie. Definitely one of the best sci-fi movies of the decade, a moving character study and adventure tale in a good old saving the world fashion. The visuals are excellent, the music spot-on for the situation, and the end result is something that had me in tears on several occasions. Definitely not a film to miss for science fiction fans.

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