Sunshine Review

Written by: alex1176   

Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller plays like a mix between "Event Horizon" and "Red Planet". It's story is classic "old-school" science fiction: a small group of scientists board a spaceship bound for the sun in hopes to save a freezing earth. Their mission is to re-ignite the sun's heat with a giant nuclear bomb. As they get closer to their destination, things begin to go horribly wrong. And right before the "payload" is to be delivered, it really hits the fan: a crew member who's "lost it" begins to act out the part of Jason Vorhees.

The entire movie is made of bits and parts of similar sci-fi themed films before it. That's the most disappointing part of the flick. It seems to exist of patches of cloth from other films. However, the direction by the visual stylist Boyle is good and so are the performances by the entire cast. In fact, the movie's cliched ending benefits from style.

In a way, "Sunshine" feels like style over substance. Everything in the pic has been done before and the stock characters are tired cliches, but again, it works mainly because the director's skill and the actor's performances. If you were wanting something as equally as solid as Boyle's "28 Days Later", than you'll probably be disappointed. But if you look at it in the vaccuum of outer space sci-fi thrillers , than you'll see a small gem here. It has some gore and killings for the horror crowd and if you can survive some of the predictable scenarios, than you'll probably end up liking this stylish picture.