Sunshine

By: The Dude

Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Now, there's no one more up for catchin' a few rays than my good self. I’m all for chillin' on the beach or by the pool with the shades firmly in place, and a healthy dose of the sun cream being applied liberally by a comely lass of virtue true. But this here Sunshine, takes that idea to a whole new level.

I’m talking charcoal-style burning here people. Folks in this piece of cinematic work are so close to the sun they end up crispy. That sort of Sunshine should be avoided as much as Sunshine in the western suburbs of Melbourne should be avoided.

What this flick concerns itself with is a bunch o’ astronauts who zip off toward the sun in an effort to save planet Earth. Apparently what’s happened is the sun is starting to conk out - just like an old Datsun 120Y I used to own that did a gear box one night and never fully recovered. Unlike my Datsun though, these here astro-fellas reckon they can kick start the thing with a handful of well-place nuclear warheads.

Fair enough, I say. If you can’t restart a dying star with a bomb, what else is nuclear power good for?

Now it might sound interesting, but don’t let my ability to narrate a quality story instill any hope that this is a good film. Sunshine is actually a self-indulgent film experience is what it is.

The flamin’ thing takes as long to get interesting as it would actually take to fly to the sun. It’s all just techno-mumbo-jumbo dialogue and hard to understand exterior shots of the spaceship. There’s no acid-bleeding alien. There’s no Klingons. There’s no Death Star. Boring.

By the 65 minute mark, you end up yelling at the screen: “Just get to the fricken sun will you!”

To be fair, there’s a little sidebar action when the captain of another ship slips on board, but there’s really no explanation of what he’s up to or why he has third degree burns to 100 percent of his body or why he sprouts off Bible verses willy nilly, or why he’s trying to kill everyone, or how he survived after being cremated.

‘Bout the most exciting thing in Sunshine is the sound track. It’s more exciting than the movie.

Verbatim:
Capa: “Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus Two.”

In a word: Slow