Reviewed by Kate Bevan
Stars Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans,
Rose Byrne, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh,
Hiroyuki Sanada, Mark Strong
Written by Alex Garland
UK certification 15 | RRP £19.99
DVD Region 2 | Audio Dolby Digital 5.1
Runtime 107 minutes
Directed by Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle’s latest foray into sci-fi is serious stuff, gorgeous to look at and full of questions that will make your head hurt. The premise is standard-issue sci-fi: the sun is dying, the planet is cold and a team of astronauts is aboard a massive spaceship heading to the moribund star with a bomb the size of Manhattan which will, if delivered correctly to the heart of the sun, reignite it and save humankind.
However, while the plot elements are pick-and-mix sci-fi tropes, the way Boyle, writer Garland and his cast mix it up sets this film apart from its peers. This is no space-cowboy-Bruce-Willis romp: it is dazzling, elegiac, exquisitely beautiful and
concerned both with the individual humans and the biggest questions of all about humanity. The small crew on the beautifully realised Icarus II are 16 months out from Earth when they pick up the distress signal of the Icarus I, the first spaceship to attempt the mission which vanished without trace. Should they check out the lost spaceship and see if there are any survivors or should they press on to complete their mission?
Things start to go horribly pear-shaped as they decide to investigate Icarus I: the captain (Sanada) meets possibly the most beautiful end in film history; the oxygen garden, a glorious splash of green in the otherwise mostly grey and blue palette, is destroyed and one by one most of the crew are dispatched as it transpires that not all the crew of Icarus I died after all. Pinbacker (Strong) is the Kurtz of Sunshine, staring not into a heart of darkness but a heart of light: driven mad by solitude, he believes he has been speaking to God. And maybe he has: one of the wonderful things about this film is the way it leaves much to the viewer to interpret.
In the magnificent finale, Capa (Murphy), the ship’s physicist and the man charged with saving mankind by delivering the bomb into the sun, faces his final, greatest moment. Does he succeed in his mission? The coda provides a satisfying closure to the film.
EXTRAS**** Quite a few, making the DVD a meaty package. Boyle provides a commentary and so does Dr Brian Cox, one of the science advisors. Cox’s is a fascinating way to spend an hour and 40 minutes or so: it’s both witty, accessible and yet scholarly and informative. There is also a series of snippets of video diary from the people involved in making the film and two rather odd, unrelated short films that Boyle enthuses about as he introduces them. A couple of deleted scenes with commentary from Boyle and some trailers wrap it up.