The superb, apocalyptic sci-fi premise of genre-hopping director Danny (28 DAYS LATER) Boyle’s latest movie owes a debt to conventional Hollywood disaster movie blockbusters like THE CORE and ARMAGEDDON, complete with a climactic scene of world-saving individual triumph. Its legacy, however, dates back to Hammer’s wonderfully low key THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (1962) and earlier movies than that.
It’s the execution, however, that lifts SUNSHINE above the standard Tinsel Town ensemble catastrophe pic. Strikingly shot and acted with rare conviction by a non-starry cast, it achieves the creepily claustrophobic, doom-laden ambience of ALIEN and the best of that film’s imitators. This is a disaster movie that feels more like a horror picture, with grim plot developments and a second half that pulls off real scares. Typical of the film’s unconventional approach is an ending that replaces Hollywood-style air-punching celebration with a beautifully understated final shot conveying hope via one simple, haunting image.
The plot is simple but dynamic. Our sun is dying. As Earth endures the effects of a solar winter, the crew of Icarus II attempt to make up for the failed efforts of the original Icarus seven years earlier. Their mission : to reignite the faltering star with the aid of a nuclear payload the size of Manhattan. Following assorted crises, it becomes apparent they’re not going to have sufficient O2 to make it back home. Only a fraction of the seven man team will be able to reach the destination, prevent catastrophe and return to their lives on Earth.
As the small cast (dominated by Chris Evans and 28 DAYS LATER’s Cillian Murphy) face an escalating series of mishaps, some of them familiar from other, similar disaster epics, Boyle sustains the intensity with remarkable assurance. When the crew discover a mysterious “other” is on board with them, SUNSHINE turns into an outright space horror flick, complete with gore and a hideously disfigured “monster” who appears indestructible and terrorizes the surviving crew members.
Early in the film one character jokingly refers to alien body count movies but, even when SUNSHINE becomes a pure genre flick, it never lapses into routine. Obscuring the central menace visually and maintaining a degree of ambiguity about whether the events of the final reels are even really happening, Boyle stages a denouement that plays like the film EVENT HORIZON should have been.
As proven by his stellar track record (SHALLOW GRAVE, TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER), Boyle is notably gifted at marrying music with visuals. Here, a marvelously evocative score by Underworld and John Murphy enhances the impact of the thrilling on-screen action, including its riveting countdown finale.
-Steven West
DVD Features:
- Audio Commentary By Director Danny Boyle
- Deleted Scenes With Commentary By Danny Boyle
- Alternate Ending
- Web Production Diaries
- Short Films
Dad’s Dead Directed By Chris Shepherd
Mole Hills Directed By Dan Arnold
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
