Movie: Sunshine

I thought I would change up the the pace here today and do a quick review of a movie I rented the other night, from my cable box's On Demand Movies section.

The film I decided on was a science fiction-thriller called Sunshine (official site here).

The first thing I want to touch on is the director, Danny Boyle. This guy has directed some really great movies like: 28 Days Later, The Beach, and Trainspotting. He has a very artistic eye that really makes his films beautiful even in the most disturbing situations.

Now, to the actors. The cast is a split down the middle of no one you would know and people you recognize but don't know their name. The star of the movie (besides the sun) is Cillian Murphy. Cillian is familiar with the director having starred in 28 Days Later. He also in Red Eye, and is probably best known for play The Scarecrow in Batman Begins and the upcoming sequel Dark Knight. He's a little creepy, but likable to some extent. The only other person worth mentioning is Chris Evans, since he is the Human Torch in the Fantastic 4 films. So with an accomplished director and a few familiar faces, the movie had some potential to start out with.

The story premise is simple. It's the future and the Sun is dying, which means the earth is cooling and everything on it is dying. So someone (I'm guessing it's whatever is left in the way of a world government) builds a giant ship to fly to the Sun in order to reignite it with a massive bomb they refer to as "the payload". But something happens, and the ship never gets to the sun nor does it return to earth. So, Sunshine is about the second (and final) attempt.

I don't want to give away anything so I will keep it very nonspecific. The movie takes place in the spaceship with a small crew. You should expect a certain amount of space movie cliches. And about half way through the movie takes a strange turn into the horror genre.

After a 2 hour investment, you're done.

Pros:
Extremely visual movie, the effects are beautiful and powerful.
Very well-written characters. You get a very wide range of human emotion and thought process.
Not too over-the-top. Sometimes these movies get ridiculous with technological advancement, but Sunshine keeps it in the realm of possible.

Cons:
Small cast in small spaces. Don't expect variety.
They wait so you wait. The movie is about getting to a destination, so you end up waiting for the action to start at times (it does eventually come).
Frustrating, in the vain of, when your watching horror movies and the girl runs upstairs instead of out the front door.

Verdict:
- I found this to be an enjoyable movie, but it is something you have to be in the mood to watch.
- If you like scifi, specifically space-themed movies, you should probably give this a try. It has many good qualities that are not in most of films of this type.
- The same applies to horror movie buffs. If you can convince yourself to watch it based on the storyline, and make it through the first third of the running time, you will probably enjoy it.
- Everyone else should just wait until it hits basic cable or the movie channels.