Sunshine

(movie review)

"So," says I casually to one of my co-workers, "Seen any good movies lately?"

"Yeah," he said. "I just rented 'Sunshine' last night."

"Never heard of it," I said.

"Really? It's by the same guy who did 'Trainspotting' and '28 Days Later'."

"Hmmm. Sounds like something I should have heard about," I said.

Of course, you could write a book about the things I haven't heard about. I'm not always the most with it guy in the world. And being in Japan doesn't help. I'm not sure if this movie got a more hyped up release in the US or not, but I never knew of its existence until last week.

But, based on my co-worker's recommendation, I rented it and gave it a whirl last night.

It is indeed another film by Danny Boyle, who brought us the films mentioned above. And based on his resume, you can guess that this will be another unique movie.

It's an interesting movie and hard to classify. It is on one hand very original, and on the other hand feels very familiar. The general tone of the movie, a suspenseful science fiction story with a kind of creepy feel, reminded me of the re-runs of "The Outer Limits" I used to watch on TNT. The slow pace of the film, the outer space setting, and the omniscient computer which addresses everyone by name reminded of "2001: A Space Odyssey". The plot point revolving around the arboretum inside the space ship reminded me of "Silent Running". The idea of finding a long lost abandoned space ship and trying to piece together what had happened to the old crew is a common plot device in many "Star Trek" episodes. The dwindling supplies and the mystery saboteur reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat."

Added to this are several old sci-fi cliches slightly altered. The old "one man can escape through the torpedo hatch, one man has to stay behind to push the button" is here. As well as a mysterious visitor to the ship.

Still, even if this film feels slightly familiar, the producers have done a good job of mixing all these elements together, and I'd say in the end it works.

This is a slow moving film, which isn't a bad thing, but you do have to be in the right mood to watch it. It's not quite as slow as "2001", but it's in that general line. It helps to be feeling slightly contemplative and patient when you put this into the DVD player.

I found myself squirming on the couch a little during the drawn out ending sequence (and the choppy filming style didn't really help things either, but that's only an issue in the very final scenes). But on the whole I'd say I enjoyed this film. It felt just like watching old episodes of "The Outer Limits" or "The Twilight Zone" again.

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Sunshine: Movie Review (Scripted)