KEY POINTS:
It's been a while since we had this sense of space. Sunshine might be set on a very large rocketship carrying a very large weapon, but it's not that's sort of sci-fi film. It's pulling the idea of space travel back down to what's humanly plausible - or might be in 50 years - and then elevating it to a higher orbit.
It might not quite reach the trajectory of the classics it borrows heavily and happily from - 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Alien - but neither should it be mistaken for a solar variation on all those comet-busting action flicks of a few years back in which a plucky team head into the wild black yonder to save the world.
Yes, the crew of the Icarus II might be charged with dropping a nuke into the sun to defibrillate the heart of the prematurely dying star which is causing global cooling on the Earth they left years before.
But just as he rethought the zombie film into something intriguing on 28 Days Later, British director Boyle, working from a script by novelist Alex Garland, is more interested in the existential and quasi-spiritual possibilities of such a mission.
After all, flying to the sun, let alone bombing it back into life, says the film, is sure going to affect your outlook on life in different ways. Even if you are a seemingly well-balanced physicist, astronaut, biologist or psychologist brilliant enough to become one of the crew of eight. They are supplemented by a computer also called Icarus who speaks in a delivery not unlike her dear old Uncle HAL from 2001.
Sunshine does have a fairly conventional structure and predictable arc: ego clashes turn to human errors turn to malfunctions turn to chaos turn to tragedy, complete with occasional nail-biting repair missions on the hull and a rising body count.
The ship's missing predecessor, Icarus I - you think they would have learned from that name, huh? - suddenly has to be figured into the mission's calculations. Then comes the cosmic overdrive of the finale that is part thriller, part horror and part hazard to the optic nerve which has already been fried by the previous hour-plus of star-gazing.
But it remains compelling thanks to the acting and being technically convincing to the end. And for all that abundant solar glare, it's at its brightest as it attempts to illuminate some very big ideas.
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Cliff Curtis, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh, Mark Strong
Director: Danny Boyle
Rating: M, violence and offensive language
Running time: 107 mins
Screening: SkyCity, Hoyts, Berkeley
