Sunshine is one of those films which isn’t quite sci-fi. In the disaster-movie vein of other blockbusters such as The Day after Tomorrow and 2012, a few individuals face against nature to prevent the end of the world. However, set in the depths of inter-planetary space, it doesn’t get to rely on over-the-top CGI disasters to provide the action, only using them at the most opportune of moments. Instead it produces an efficient and comprehensive character study of the crew of this apocalypse-preventing ship, and what it would be like to be sent into the stars for years. Not a film for the average film goer, but for the thriller fan, the mind games fan or the pretty shiny lights fan, it will be up there in your top #.

The film premise is simple. The Earth relies on the sun for life. The Sun is dying. The Earth will die. We need to turn the sun back on. Simple! So they send out a ship with a fairly hefty payload of nuclear material to turn it on again. However, that’s not what the film is about. The film is set in the last stint of the epic journey, years into their voyage, when the crew starts feeling the strain. It turns into a psychological drama, and as the crew is whittled down in various incidents it goes further, into a thriller come slasher moments in one of the most dramatic genre shifts I’ve yet to see. In fact it happens so fast it took me at least five minutes to work out what was going on. But I think that was the point.

The genre shift really gives you a big shock, but it may have been a little too late.

Throughout the movie the director puts you right where you need to be, in the mindset of the characters. The sets are simple and claustophobic, the speech is limited to what is absolutely necessary and the cameras placed so you feel less like an outside observer and more like another one of the crew, silently getting on with things in the background to the main discussions and drama. The camera work is impecable, continuing to give a sense of realism to the film, as even those scenes one the outside look as if they have been captured by a piece of observation equiptment rather than some omniscient presence as with most epics.

Even during those “ooo aah” moments of modern CGI, you feel like an observer standing in the same room.

The plot is very well structured to immerse you in the characters and yet still have an escalating sence of urgency. The two main disasters of the trip are both examples of the routine, aided by a mistake or misjudgment or two, going horrifically wrong. That’s the best thing about the movie, it could happen. Although the later genre shift later also brings with it improbability, you are so swept away in the moment you barely get a chance to breate and start criticising it. If, like me, you had no idea how things were happening, you were on the right track. You weren’t supposed to. The film didn’t attempt to explain things to you that you wouldn’t know having been just dumped in the ship half way through the mission and yet gives you enough to kind of work out what bits do what, why that’s there, and why they’re all absolutely screwed when things go wrong.

The atmosphere of the film was excellent, claustophobic when you needed it, mind numbingly huge the rest of the time

However, not all is fine and dandy with this film. The beginning and end are shabby tag-ons to attempt to further the emotional concept of the film, instead only distancing you from the crew, where you’re supposed to be. Lets face it, none of us have the faintest conception of how big the world is, let alone space, we were more comfortable with the ship, which we can imagine the proportions of, than the doom of a planet. Some of the characters were needlessly irritating and some didn’t seem to have much purpose on the ship at all, seeing as they are whittled down everything still seems to work fine. Also the genre shift, no matter how efficiently it’s done and how it makes everything a little more exciting and urgent, does mean that you loose the feel set up by the first three-quarters of the film, which is a shame. The first section of the film is a little dull, but I suppose that’s needed for escalation.

I’m finding it quite difficult to understand what exactly is wrong with Sunshine. It is, as I was watching it and as I look back on it, a good film. It had all the right elements, characters were well explored, CGI was great, camera work and music was great, setting was very good… but it’s just not a great film. Good concept, and well adapted, but maybe just not meant for a film. A book maybe, but not a film. It doesn’t grasp you, it doesn’t shake you around like you’d expect from modern blockbusters. It occasionally bumps you, roles your mind around a bit, but no in-your-face screaming to make you pay attention. It’s a film you can have in the background as you do something more important. Bit of a shame really.

… but it was still pretty damn good. Watch it, even if you are chatting to your mate or playing scrabble at the same time (who knows).

4/5