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Average User Score: 7 (92 sources)

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CaptHowdy666

-1

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This movie was total bunk. The last fifteen minutes is fine, but the entire rest of the movie is soooo slow going, the characters are boring, everything about this film is actually.

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Posted sep 3, 2008 10:33 am pt

lisagraham

-1

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So I am big Danny Boyle fan and he has tackled so many genre so successfully in the past, but not this one.

Aside from the story not being that inventive I thought thought the acting was good, the depiction of life on a long term...
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So I am big Danny Boyle fan and he has tackled so many genre so successfully in the past, but not this one.

Aside from the story not being that inventive I thought thought the acting was good, the depiction of life on a long term space mission was good, but the story telling was lacking.

I never quite understood the motivation of Pinbacker... why he was there... where he came from... what was his reason for being...

Also the odd camera angles and single frame flashbacks inserted were irritating and did not add to the story.

It was an OK sci-fi movie, but not one I would recommend.

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Posted jul 23, 2008 4:11 am pt

drek2

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I'll be honest, when I read the synopsis of this movie and it's theme of "re-igniting the sun for survival" I was pretty skeptical thinking a great it's another Armageddon or something similar. So I watched the trailer, and it made me...
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I'll be honest, when I read the synopsis of this movie and it's theme of "re-igniting the sun for survival" I was pretty skeptical thinking a great it's another Armageddon or something similar. So I watched the trailer, and it made me remember that Armageddon was a good movie! so it's not such a bad thing after all that the plot has more or less been done before but since it has, at least they brought in the director of Trainspotting & 28 Days Later to do it right. So do me a favor and watch the trailer - then go see the movie! It starts off great and about midway turns from thriller to almost horror! Great acting all around. Definitely recommended!

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Posted jul 5, 2008 5:20 pm pt

belial_77

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I can't believe I'm give a film by Danny Boyle this high of a rating. His films have always felt like watered down, yet overly pretentious versions of other, better movies...

But this one is really good. Boyle's finally found a...
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I can't believe I'm give a film by Danny Boyle this high of a rating. His films have always felt like watered down, yet overly pretentious versions of other, better movies...

But this one is really good. Boyle's finally found a sub-genre that compliments his style. Much as Kubrick's 2001 had an exaggerated feel that added to both setting and mood, so does this movie. The use of lighting and cgi fx coupled w/ weird camera angles and techniques, fit in well to the alien beauty inherent in space exploration. Acting is decent (tho never spectacular imo). the script has a couple of bad spots... however, it was rather good. I even liked the weird shift from 2001 to Event Horizon wannabe. but I don't get the reasoning behind the bad guy bein superhuman tho.

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Posted jun 3, 2008 4:14 pm pt

harrison91

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space is very dipresing because scientists are always saying were all going to die because of loads of differnt reasons. well as long as we have some films stars to send into space and blow stuff up we will be fine. armagedon solved the problem of...
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space is very dipresing because scientists are always saying were all going to die because of loads of differnt reasons. well as long as we have some films stars to send into space and blow stuff up we will be fine. armagedon solved the problem of a comet about to hit earth by killing bruice willis with a big bomb and now someone has solved the problem of the sun dieing with a big bomb. every ones happy

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Posted jun 1, 2008 4:29 am pt

home2839

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I thought it started off great, the movie had me riveted. But than it began to just spiral into a "How else can we screw up this mission?" plot line which totally destroyed the ending.

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Posted mar 19, 2008 4:35 am pt

expatriot

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A beautifully shot movie with good acting too, but I felt the script was slightly confusing and tried to be two things at once. Enjoyable and watchable but not an instant classic.

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Posted feb 15, 2008 2:17 am pt

afq2846

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This is danny boyle's new film and its suprising that he would do it. Its a sci-fi film where the world is dying. The sun is about to die out and they send a crew out to save it. The crew of eight (I think) have various problems with each other...
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This is danny boyle's new film and its suprising that he would do it. Its a sci-fi film where the world is dying. The sun is about to die out and they send a crew out to save it. The crew of eight (I think) have various problems with each other and with the mission. They end up trying to take a side track on their mission and it ends up trapping them. Then they go about trying to salvage the mission. Yes this sounds like a mess but when you see the movie it makes sense. This is actually a pretty decent movie that really never got a chance in the U.S. The special effects are pretty good but the acting is key. Boyle got a bunch of good actors to play the various crew members. I really think with a bigger release this movie could have been more successful. That being said this is worth a viewing just to see the acting and the direction. Boyle is a very good director who needs to make more movies.

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Posted jan 20, 2008 11:41 pm pt

AlexN

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Sunshine wants to have it both ways; it tries to be a creepy sci-fi thriller, and a character study on the stresses of space travel and the emotional state of people charged with such a monumental task. It is this scattering of concepts that drags...
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Sunshine wants to have it both ways; it tries to be a creepy sci-fi thriller, and a character study on the stresses of space travel and the emotional state of people charged with such a monumental task. It is this scattering of concepts that drags it down.

For what it's worth, the character study stuff works. Watching this team of wide-eyed astronauts get into minor scuffles with one another in between gawking sessions at the ever-approaching sun and, in the film's most triumphant moment of sheer beauty, the planet Mercury, is really engaging stuff. Some of these actors aren't exactly fantastic, but the writing is sharp enough to keep their interactions consistently fascinating for two full acts as the mission and their mental states begin to unravel at an alarming speed.

Then, in the third act, the whole thing gets completely bollocksed. After meeting up with the ship Earth had sent seven years prior and subsequently lost all contact with, the film decides that the only way to finish this thing out while simultaneously ramping up the tension is to, quite literally, steal the last half hour of Event Horizon, minus the hell dimension thing. Its thievery is so blatant as to even make the final antagonist look almost identical to Sam Neill's character in Event Horizon's final act. As if the film hadn't spent enough time building up the tension and instability with its existing scenarios and characters, writer Alex Garland takes the piss yet again in the end of one of his stories, yanking some absurd situation out of left field and stirring it into the mix until the film you'd been so enraptured by becomes almost unrecognizable for a time. He did it in The Beach (though, to be fair, that film had several issues prior to the end), and he did it in 28 Days Later. Someone really needs to assign this guy a writing partner specifically to write endings for him, because he just doesn't know how to do it himself.

Still, disastrous climax aside, the film ends on a proper note, and all the stuff leading up to that ridiculous conflict, not to mention the astonishing looking spatial scenery and ship special effects make Sunshine worth seeing. It's a good film that will have you screaming in the end about how it could have been so much better.

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Posted aug 24, 2007 4:34 pm pt

alichino

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I agree that this movie was visually stunning. It contained a complex and deep view of the power of sunlight, and in those especially, it was engrossing and beautiful. The general appearance of the inside of the ship was slightly out of class,...
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I agree that this movie was visually stunning. It contained a complex and deep view of the power of sunlight, and in those especially, it was engrossing and beautiful. The general appearance of the inside of the ship was slightly out of class, and left me to wonder about who designed it. As it just wasn't 'small' enough. As one reviewer points out, the ship itself looks clunky, very much what a ship built in space, by humans of or near our generation, would look like: a collection of boxes on extended pylons, but inside, it was awful spacious at times, which draws out theoretic questions about the validity of such a ship (all that space needs to be filled with air, in space air is a serious commidity). And the scientific validity of the whole concept is a huge hurdle to overcome, especially when moment after moment the idea of actual space travel and the physical nature of the universe is simply ignored. If you're scientific minded, this movie needs you to make a huge leap of faith...just be warned.
But that said, the concept really seemed in the first act, to be heading for a deep intellectually minded thriller about the effects of isolation and the added effect of being so near the sun could have on a selection of mind orientated humans. It looked to be taking a hard look at our nature and ability to survive, to complete a mission, to basically do an impossible feat. Unfortunately, by act II this premise was cast aside when they found Icarus I. The whole theme changed course at this point. No longer were the crew members in danger of self destruction on the same levels, instead they destroy themselves by natural human error, instead of the supernatural mentality that was being formed. It looses steam in the middle of the second act, and falls into the old trappings of a typical horror / thriller mentality. The only saving grace is the camera work, which keeps the creepy tension high and distorts the obvious fact that we are watching Friday the Thirteen Part 30.
With so much potential about the nature of humanity, the effects of isolation, the added effects of the proximity to the sun, the complex and very emotionally trying mission, the lack of spirituality in the characters, and the multitude of other factors that could have been explored in this movie, it's a sad case that was unable to deliver on any of those.
By the way, our blood stays liquid do to the pressure of the atmosphere (as do most all of the liquids in our body, including the plasma in our cells). Because blood is a complex mixture of primary elements, best found in our natural environment as gases. A completely depressurized environment, such as open space, would cause our blood to vaporize, that is boil off, in less than a few seconds. The idea that we would 'freeze' in open space is bogus...in fact we would burn out our insides, explode, and then the little tiny pieces of us would freeze over the course of time it would take heated material to loose it's energy (through radiation) and solidify. Things do not get cold, they loose heat. But, since we no longer live in a world where writers has to have any idea what they are talking about, such scenes, where people are exposed to the pressure-less emptiness of open space still prevail.

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Posted aug 6, 2007 2:20 am pt

• [+] Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  
  91
  A bare outline of the plot reads like a space-adventure thriller with end-of-the-world stakes and a hint of celestial spirituality, and the haunted spaceship twist in the third act is pure B-movie madness.

  by Sean Axmaker | Read Full Review »
• [+] Boston Globe
  
  88
  If their movie doesn't float your boat as a work of science-fiction, action, philosophy, heliocentrism, or staggering visual spectacle (although, it really should), then it certainly succeeds as a parable for cinematic ambition.

  by Wesley Morris | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  88
  Sunshine is near-classic modern science fiction, hobbled only by a chaotic final reel and some casting missteps in the white-male department.

  by Michael Phillips | Read Full Review »
• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  83
  Another thinking-person's thriller from director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, also co-pilots on "28 Days Later."

  by Lisa Schwarzbaum | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  80
  A first-rate, seemingly sweat-free entertainer, Mr. Boyle always sells the goods smoothly, along with the chills, the laughs and, somewhat less often, the tears. He's wickedly good at making you jump and squirm in your seat, which he does often in Sunshine, but he tends to avoid tapping into deep wells of emotion.

  by Manohla Dargis | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Hollywood Reporter
  
  80
  Sunshine is its own creature, taking inspiration from classic science fiction films but insisting on a gritty reality that much improves on past space adventures.

  by Kirk Honeycutt | Read Full Review »
• [+] Slate
  
  80
  In moments--the early moments--Sunshine can feel like a new genre classic, albeit one heavily in debt to its predecessors.

  by Dana Stevens | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  80
  Beam yourselves aboard Sunshine, set 50 years in the future. The voyage works, beautifully.

  by Desson Thomson | Read Full Review »
• [+] Premiere
  
  75
  The fact that Boyle and Garland have here created something close to an actual trip rather than the mere spectacle that most screen sci-fi contents itself with being nowadays is enough to recommend Sunshine.

  by Glenn Kenny | Read Full Review »
• [+] TV Guide
  
  75
  What this spectacular-looking sci-fi thriller lacks in originality it makes up for in pure beauty: It just might be the most visually audacious and startlingly beautiful space opera since the original "Solaris."

  by Ken Fox | Read Full Review »
• [+] Miami Herald
  
  75
  Despite the efforts of the cast (Byrne and Murphy are particularly good), you rarely feel a thing for any of them, but I don't think you're really supposed to, anyway. The characters in Sunshine tackle thorny ethical questions and debate the sanctity of life on their way to the sun, but the movie is really about the voyage, not the voyagers. Enjoy the sights.

  by Rene Rodriguez | Read Full Review »
• [+] Portland Oregonian
  
  75
  This sci-fi thriller -- which is alternately nail-biting, gorgeous and a little silly -- spends most of its time throwing mechanical and human errors at the most important space mission ever.

  by M. E. Russell | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Onion (A.V. Club)
  
  75
  As a pure cinematic experience, it's exhilaratingly, brutally beautiful.

  by Tasha Robinson | Read Full Review »
• [+] ReelViews
  
  75
  Hard-core science fiction fans will likely greet Sunshine with a smile. Others may find this to be an odd motion picture, but there's enough going on that even those who are expecting something flashier should still be engaged.

  by James Berardinelli | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  75
  Science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there's a lot going on up there, and we can't even define precisely what a soliton is.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »