Movie Review - "Sunshine"
"...They went at night."
"Sunshine" is Danny Boyle's homage to "2001"* while serving up an environmental metaphor in a sci-fi setting, a dissertation on the uses of faith, while also landing in the "Incredible Mess" subcategory of films.
It goes like this: Our sun is dying. Seven years ago, the spaceship "Icarus I" headed out for the sun to drop a payload the "mass" of Manhattan Island to re-ignite it and stop the new Ice Age developing on Earth. The ship disappeared mysteriously, and so, "Icarus II" was launched, same mission, same payload. You'd think with the luck they had with the first one, they wouldn't name the second ship the same thing. Plus, if you're going to the sun, "Icarus" might not be the most inspiring legend to name your ship after.**
Be that as it may, the ship is as "green" as can be, with its own eco-system/garden (overseen by Michelle Yeoh) providing oxygen for the ship. But it wouldn't be much of a space drama if things went smoothly, and before you can radio "Houston, we've got a problem," people get hot under the helmet-collar and things start to come apart faster than an "O" ring on a chilly day. The ship's shrink may be getting a bit too much sun. The "payload expert" (Cillian Murphy) and systems engineer (Chris Evans) are not getting along in what the pilot (Rose Byrne) calls "an excess of manhood breaking out in the com-center," and a slight miscalculation by the navigator creates a series of unfortunate events, and turns him suicidal.
Geez, folks, go outside. Get some sun.
Danny Boyle can be counted on to breathe new oxygen into any genre, like "Trainspotting" for the "kitchen-sink" film, "28 Days Later" for the "zombie" movie, but "Sunshine" has so many echoes of Kubrick's "2001" right down to color schemes, ship designs, POV shots, "Icarus's" somewhat fussy computer behavior, freeze-frames in vague situations and close-up eye shots that "A Space Odyssey" is never too far from his frame (Murphy even has a slight resemblance to Keir Dullea). The dynamic of the crew is right out of Scott's "Alien," and the denoument is subject to interpretation (after the "multiple endings" debacle of "28 Days Later"). One also suspects that to secure a rating, or due to some preview-audience's expressed discomfort, some make-up effects have been toned down to near-imperceptibility. But, by and large, its a fascinating excercise in a genre that, if it asks too much of a leap of faith from its audience, can become laughable. "Sunshine" is far from that. It's always a little bit exhilarating to see a sci-film that obeys the laws of orbital mechanics, knows the dangers of space-travel (where math can be fatal), and doesn't have one ray-gun.
Best to see it on a big screen, it's full of little details that won't translate on video.
"Sunshine" is a Matinee for a rainy day. Bring some sun-block.
* in fact, it's a bit scary how many little ties to "2001" there are. Why, you'll even see a black monolith or three in this film.
** In his acceptance of the D.W. Griffith Award from the Director's Guild in 1999 Kubrick evoked the Icarus story to talk about D.W. Griffith's rise and fall in the film business. "I always felt the message of the 'Icarus' story wasn't "Don't fly too high," but, rather, "Do a better job on the wax and feathers!" You can see that speech here.
11 comments:
Orbital mechanics is likely the only technical detail this film got right - the rest of the "science" was too implausible. I wanted to like, I really did.
When you say "the rest of the science" you're talking about The Sun, and all the technical issues that go along with the very premise of the film (starting with if a sun is dyng, it's because it's running out of fuel, not that "the pilot light" has gone out!).
Granted.
But I don't really believe in "The Star Child" either.
I don't think aliens would give a rip about this planet for whatever reason.
In "Logan's Run" the Renewal Ceremony has an audience who see that no one survives, but nobody-suspects something fishy about it? Ever?
My point is: Though rooted in science, science fiction also has roots deep in sociology, psychology and religion, or more specifically, matters of Faith. And sometimes you gotta take the Leap. Like all good astronauts do.
I had a little "thing" with Steve about "Fight Club" being implausible because blah blah blah, and he was arguing the point, but I said the WHOLE PREMISE falls apart when you look back at the film, and see that if the resolution of the movie is TRUE, the events of the movie couldn't have happened. Maybe that's a Faith thing, too. He could make the Leap. I couldn't.
And, hey, you're a Bradbury fan!
Remember "The Bradbury Defense?"
No, you misunderstand me. I could easily take the re-starting of the sun as a conceit (although I could have stood a little more technobabble explaining how a bomb the mass of Manhattan (which is still infinitesimal compared to the mass of the sun) could have affected anything). Heck, there's a great short story ("Weather Bureau"?), part of which takes place in a ship that's sailing on the surface of the sun, and it works totally.
No, what sucked was:
An AI smart enough to take control of a ship but not smart enough to tell a navigator he left out a step. (Heck, he should have had a manual friggin' checklist, just like airplanes do.)
Airlock passages that don't set off alarms when they have been ripped apart.
Airlock doors that can be manually locked from the cabin with no override from the airlock - not even explosive bolts.
An AI that can track people by their vital signs but does not automatically tell the crew when an extra, unidentified person suddenly appears.
Components that are clearly raised and lowered by overhead armatures that somehow require a crew member to go into the coolant underneath them when they are jammed. (What the heck was the Human Torch using that wrench on, anyway?)
And like that. It all added up to too many "But..." moments for me.
The big stuff (suns and star-babies) can work fine, if you get the little stuff right.
You sound like me with "Fight Club" and "The Fountain."
But I still refer you to "The Bradbury Defense," from his part of the book "Mars and the Mind of Man" (though I also read it in an Afterword for an Anniversary edition of "Farenheir 451:"
"You see, nine-year-old boys are always finding me out.
A few years back, one dreadful boy ran up to me and said: 'Mr. Bradbury?'
'Yes?' I said.
'That book of yours, 'The Martian Chronicles?' he said.
'Yes,' I said.
'On page 92, where you have the moons of Mars rising in the East?'
'Yeah,' I said.
'Nah,' he said.
So I hit him.
I'll be damned if I'll be bullied by bright children. Needless to say, I've never revised 'The Martian Chronicles' based on new information given me by young boys."
But he will get pissed at Michael Moore for appropriating "Farenheit 451" for his film, while conveniently forgetting he's been using quotes derived from Byron and Whitman, and Shakespeare his entire career.
Maybe I won't use his "Defense."
The Bradbury Defense is immaterial and irrelevant (as Ham Burger would say) when the author (or auteur) is doing Heinlein or Clarke.
I haven't seen Fight Club or Fountain.
Sunshine just wasn't that good.
Quit picking on The Fountain. It made perfect sense and was a beautiful film.
John also left this, but for some reason Blogger regrettably blew it away:
"But in the Simpson's movie... the physics of trying to ride a motorcycle out of the top of a domed structure are completely unrealistic, no matter that they tried to set it up with earlier lessons learned about riding a motorcycle around the inside of a complete sphere. Didn't that just totally ruin the movie-going experience?"
When the cahracters are yellow without a trace of jaundice, all bets are off. (And are you talking to Walter or me on the technical details?--I liked "Sunshine.")
For Walter: And I believe "The Clarke Defense" is: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
And John, re: "The Fountain:" In a free society (and specifically my blog)I can voice my opinion. I won't quit picking on "The Fountain" (actually, I'd prefer to not think about it) "The Fountain" was a beautiful film, and (I thought) the best sound designed movie last year, but it was a dramatic wallow and just plain goofy--one of those films that ask the audience to make too big a Leap and appears ridiculous.
(I know you love it, but I just don't see what you're seeing...or forgiving, as I see it)
Let me give you a "For Instance." Ever see "The Mission"--a Spielberg directed episode of "Amazing Stories?" One of the tightest, most gut-wrenching things he's ever done--extraordinarily well-directed I thought, but the conclusion is just so flat-out BAD, I can never really say it's a favorite of mine (all of the AS series was pretty weak tea). I still say it's a masterful directing job, but a disappointing film.
Don't bring up "Sin City."
And another thing--Hamilton Burger only won one case in the entire run of "Perry Mason," and that was voided by Perry in the second part the next week.
Personally, I think Perry always flooded money into Burger's campaigns for Prosecutor every election, thus insuring he'd win every week ("Up against 'Ham' again? I'll wax that shallow fraud's tail like I do every time...Sheister!")
I guess sad and beautiful are two flavors that go together well for me. I like sad and beautiful music, and I like sad and beautiful films. There was nothing to "forgive" in the Fountain, because watching it never made me feel anything but good.
And yeah, the Simpson's thing was a poke at Walter's critique of Sunshine due to technical glitches.
I can "do" sad and beautiful, but not with "The Fountain." For instance, I have a fondness for "What Dreams May Come," as its ecstatically beautiful, as well as depressingly dark, but almost always calls for a Zoloft chaser.
Plus, there's Robin Williams doing "intense-serious" "shudder"
Richard Matheson does that to me. His novels are great reads. The films made of them tend to be wallows. Keeping my wooden stakes crossed for "I Am Legend," though.
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