SUNSHINE: Danny Boyle's New Flick

Saw it today. Beautifully shot film. One of my favorites so far this year for cinematography.

I got the feeling after watching it that we will have a nice long Special Edition with more stuff. That seems to be the way now...

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The "lonely crew in space" thing has been done over and over. It's real hard to come up with something different. If Danny Boyle made a mistake in the last third of the film it was he didn't go far enough with the Pinbacker business. Having one of the Icarus II go nutso would have been a bit predictable. But what if Pinbacker had made his appearance earlier in the film? Maybe halfway in. And instead of going on his rampage (where he really only kills one person directly...) he stays on the observation deck and screws with the crew's heads. Gives them some Col. Kurtz/Hannibal Lecter type lecturing. There was already tension among the crew. All they needed was an outside influence to turn them against each other with some well-placed metaphysical, religious doubletalk.

Now that would have made the end a bit more interesting!
 
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I just saw it and loved it. I agree with you Mojo about Pinbacker--less would've definitely been more, but wow, what a film!
 
Are you kidding? Cillian Murphy is great?

First off...Lets give the guy a chance. What I mean is...give him some time. I would hardly jump on the Cillian boat from the roles he's played thus far. 28 days later...good movie. God know I couldn't do the hospital scene without a prostetic. Batman....eh...whatever. Red eye? Better.

Anyways, Danny Boyle seems to go with what feels right. He's had plenty of opportunity to sell out and do some over produced hollywood film. Yet he sticks to his roots. Can't wait to check this out. Correction. I can wait. The film's already been out a few weeks. I need to drag myself over to the local theater, but I've been stuck working on this film for next year. Damn, this is a doozy.

Papa out!
 
I really liked this film. One of the best scifi movies of the decade. Maybe they copied a little bit too much from old famous movies, and i don't like tragedies. I liked the image quality, and i see now that they used Arri cameras, which are my favorites.
 
I came into Sunshine not knowing what it was about... the movie title conjures up images of a romantic comedy, so I had absolutely no expectations.

The first 2/3rds of this movie was absolutely phenomenal. Totally engrossing. I told myself as I was watching that this is going to be this decade's 2001: A Space Odyssey or Alien. Then the final 1/3rd of the movie completely obliterated any chance of it being a classic. The ending was so awful and clichéd, I wanted to cry.

The cinematography and special effects of the sun and spaceship were top notch. Chris Evan's acting performance was surprisingly good, considering he starred in The Fantastic 4. Some of the decisions made by the crew seemed plausible and in line with what I expect a crew of 8, trained and isolated for long periods, would say and do.

Anyway, the first 2/3rd of the film is the epitome of excellent filmmaking. The last 1/3 relegates the movie into the DVD bargain bin.
 
JasperReynolds said:
Are you kidding? Cillian Murphy is great?

First off...Lets give the guy a chance. What I mean is...give him some time. I would hardly jump on the Cillian boat from the roles he's played thus far. 28 days later...good movie. God know I couldn't do the hospital scene without a prostetic. Batman....eh...whatever. Red eye? Better.

Papa out!
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Go check out "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" and then come back here and say Cillian isn't a great actor.

He may have been in some subpar movies, but his performances were always top notch IMO
 
The DVD (official, not pirated) is on sale over here, with an alternate ending as a bonus. Haven't bought it, since the premise of the movie sounds so "camp", but you guys are making me think again...
 
Andrew Brinkhaus said:
Beautiful. In my opinion one of the most beautifully shot films in the history of cinema. Alwin Kuchler is one of the most amazing cinematographers of our age, in my mind.
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I couldn't agree more. I've seen this film twice now since I was fortunate enough to have a theatre somewhat close to me playing it, and I have been completely blown away both times. I'd been looking forward to this film since it was first announced, and I was in no way disappointed (not even by the last "awful" third of the film as some say.) To be completely honest, on the first viewing, I thought the final third was a little bit of a let down, but upon another glimpse, I thought that somehow, it was a very fitting ending.

And let me just go on record saying that I thought through all of the areas of the film, cinematography, directing/acting, editing, music, etc., this was one of the intense films I have seen in the past year or two, easily.

It's a shame that this didn't get a wider release, but on the second viewing, two of the people I saw it with were a prime example of why it didn't spread out; they were moronic younger girls who have very little capacity for critical thought. I heard them giggling and poking fun at some of the most important moments (and even some of the most frightening moments.) After the film was over, they bombarded me with questions because they "didn't get it." Even if you missed a few things, most of it should make perfect sense to people who received almost straight A's through high school like these girls. The science portrayed seems extremely accurate from what I've researched/learned in the past. And that is why this didn't go wide; it wasn't fluffy, cheesy sci-fi action junk like Armageddon or the likes. Dare I say it was too good of a film for some people? Possibly.
 
All I knew about this movie was the title, Danny Boyle directed, and it was SciFi.
I hadn't seen a poster, seen a trailer, or heard anything else about it (on purpose).

While the first 2/3rds of the movie had some interesting ideas - they were nothing new.
Numerous times throughout the movie I kept thinking, wow, that reminds me of 2001...wow, that reminds me of Alien...and wow, that reminds me of Solaris.
BUT - I was willing to let the derivative nature of the first 2/3rds go because the acting was solid and the style was there.
If he was going to ape other movies, at least he was aping good ones... he had my attention.

Unfortunately, the third act reminded me of something more along the lines of Armaggedon.

This is a movie that aimed high at the start, and in the end completely chickened out and went for a cliched third act and resolution. I REALLY wanted to like this movie... at the end of the first act he had me hooked...but somewhere along the way I just wanted it to end.

Yes, it looked fantastic. No argument there.
But I can go see plenty of movies that look great.
There is no shortage of those.
I was hoping for a great story that was going to push the limits a bit.
Instead the movie did the worst thing a movie can do (in my opinion) ... it hinted at the fact that it had the potential to be much more than it was...and then didn't deliver on that potential in the slightest.

This movie would have been MUCH better if those hints to something greater were never included.
I would have been perfectly content with an action/thriller set in space.... sure, why not?
But don't tease me with something 'more' and then drag the film down in the third act.

I haven't read the interviews with Danny Boyle that others referred to in this thread (I was staying away from everything until I could see the movie). But from the sounds of it, it's too bad he didn't make the movie he talked about in interviews.

My suggestion would be - if you want to see something that looks great on the big screen - then go see Sunshine in the theater.
If you want to see something that really tries to push the boundaries ... then go rent 2001 or Solaris instead.
Sunshine just pales by comparison to both those films in that regard, unfortunately.
 
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I finally had a chance to go see this last night. I have not seen any of this director's other movies so I am not a "fan". I am also not a huge fan of the sci-fi genre so maybe I am just out of touch.

Frankly, the movie did nothing for me. After reading about it in the ASC magazine, I was pretty hyped to see the visuals at least. I didn't realize that would be the best part of the movie.

Character development was poor in my opinion, story and script were weak. Why hire someone like Michelle Yeoh, and then give her nothing to do but grasp at a lone plant in the oxygen garden.

If this is what represents the best of sci-fi as some here have alluded to, then I'll stick to other genres.

I was very disappointed in this.
 
The DVD for Sunshine just came out here in Thailand today. I wasn't able to watch it in the theaters so I bought the DVD without previously seeing it. Fortunately I'm glad I did. It may not be the best film but it's worth watching.

Even though I only have a 13" TV (don't laugh) the visuals are what got me. The set design was amazing and the technology they use on the ship was never presented in a "look how cool this is" kind of way. They simply let the technology be part of the scene, not the focus. And they never treated the audience like idots, as other sci-fi flicks tend to do.

There were only two things that bothered me. 1) The gold space suits looked out of place. Almost laughable at times. I understand why they had to be gold, but sometimes you have to make an aesthetic design choice just so your dramatic scenes don't get chuckles from the audience. Dark metallic could have been better. And 2) The parts that were "suppose" to be intense fell kind of flat and were anti-climatic. Not sure if it was because of the pacing or because I didn't care about what was happening to the characters. Maybe both.

Overall I'd recommend it and I'm probably going to watch it again right after I click "Post".
 
PK Gillock said:
... 1) The gold space suits looked out of place. Almost laughable at times. I understand why they had to be gold, but sometimes you have to make an aesthetic design choice just so your dramatic scenes don't get chuckles from the audience. Dark metallic could have been better..
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Yeah the suits made them look like giant golden Kennys from South Park.
 
Saw it. Started promisingly, but lost me when it turned into a b-grade horror flick in the 3rd act. I think Boyle was going for some kind of transcendent moment at the end ala 2001 or Solaris, but it just came off as shlocky and not fitting with the tone of the previous 90 minutes. 2001 and Solaris were cosmic mystery stories, so abstract, inexplicable moments were fitting. The first 3/4 of this is a very straightforward, scientists on a mission story, so the shift in tone at the end feels like it comes out of nowhere. Overall it's a decent movie with great cinematography, but I agree with others who say we've seen most of this before, done better. Biggest surprise was finding out Chris Evans can actually act. Not that he's ever been terrible, he just never made much of an impression until this.
 
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