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Danny Boyle's Sunshine

by The Bridge
07/31/2007

I'm in a bit of a mood today, so I have decided to give Danny Boyle's latest flick, Sunshine, a pissy review merely because he totally dropped the ball on the soundtrack. Slipping "It's Getting Hot in Herrrre" into the mix would have been so dumb that it would pass funny, go back to dumb, and then somehow wing a u-turn in to Hilarity Land.

The preceding paragraph is demonstrative of why we try to avoid writing reviews when we are hung over. We try, in fact, to avoid hangovers in general. But sometimes there's just not enough heroin. Hi, mom!

So, "Sunshine". (Boring synopsis to follow, then hella plot spoilers and some scathing, incisive wit. Or maybe just two outta three; I am running at half-steam.) It is, for the most part, an exercise in truth in advertising - what you saw in the trailers is pretty much what it's about: it is 2057, and the sun is dying. There is never any mention of why - we are to assume that mankind somehow managed to outlive the sun, which is, in my opinion, the movie's longest shot. At any rate, a group of young, attractive white kids are on Icarus II, a spaceship designed to haul a big 'ol bomb (with a mass "equivalent to Manhattan Island") to the sun and chuck it in there, thereby restarting the sun and saving the day.
One thing you gotta love about American disaster movies: a good eighty percent of the time, the master plan for saving the day involves blowing something the fuck up.

So, there's the set up, and if you have ever seen one of these outer-space-mission movies, you know that Icarus I is the loaded gun that must, by screenwriting one-oh-one law, be fired by Act III. Icarus I had the same mission, but mysteriously (yawn) fell out of contact before completing the mission, and has not been heard from in seven years.

Actually, saying the crew are all pretty white kids is a tad misleading. There are three asians, two of whom are middle aged. Those two are dispensed with faster than you can say "token." The third is allowed to hang out, probably 'cause she's a female, and everyone digs hot Asian chicks. This is the first strike against Sunshine, since one of the offed Asian dudes - the ship's captain (Hiroyuki Sanada) - displays more charisma than the rest of the cast put together, with the possible exception of Cillian Murphy, who manages to imbue his ho-hum role - he plays the earnest, moral-compass guy - with some interest.

The first two-thirds of the movie travel down well-worn disaster-movie roads. There's the usual crescendo of snafus, finger-pointing, mental instability, dissension among the ranks, etc. But by the time they get to the old only-one-parachute gambit, we're only at the midway point, which makes me wonder how Boyle's gonna pass the time until the credits. Apparently, he and the screenwriters decided to take a big toke off the crack pipe and just wing it.

See, when Icarus II decides to veer off course a tad and hook up with Icarus I, (which is parked near Mercury, sending out an old distress signal), they board the ship and have a quick look-see, setting up the aforementioned single parachute bit - one spacesuit, a malfunctioning airlock, four guys, some folks is gonna hafta take one for the team. Now, SOMEHOW, when the boys use the airlock to shoot themselves back to their ship, I guess they ended up shooting the still-alive captain of Icarus I in with them. I guess.

It really makes little to no sense that the guy's alive, tooling about a deserted ship orbiting Mercury, fer cryin' out loud, but whatever. Anyway, he's gone all King George-crazy, and looks like a piece of mutilated, raw steak - catching too many rays, one assumes. Seems that he probably went nutso and sabotaged the mission on purpose. He shows up on Icarus II apropo of nothing (other than Boyle running out of oh-shit stuff to throw into the mix) and babbles briefly about the audacity of mankind messing with God's plan, or something, and then sets about killing the crew.

The ensuing scuffles are annoyingly hard to follow, their narrative marred by Boyle's by-now trademark camera fudging - you know, all that fast/slow/fast shit with the trails and split-second frame splicing, which made "28 Days Later" and "Trainspotting" look so fresh. Here, it is just about the only remnant of Boyle's distinctive style. It's weird: the dude starts out with innovative indie flicks that look like a crapshoot to investors - and once he proves his box-office mettle, he uses his newfound cred to make popcorn fluff?

But that's the other problem with "Sunshine": for all its summer-blockbuster cliches, it still thinks it's deep, or something. It would have been interesting to see the issues of mankind vs. God's will, sacrifice, and mortality explored with careful consideration, but the only character with anything interesting to say about it is the Loony Tunes Cap'n, and he's too busy being a creepy weirdo to pontificate for very long. There is also the matter of the unique effects of light and darkness on the human psyche, which is mentioned once, off-hand, and then dropped.

I wouldn't have minded so much if "Sunshine" had just relaxed and decided to embrace its Big Dumb Movie-ness and have fun with it - strap Bruce Willis to a bomb or something. And c'mon, how many sunshine puns could we dig out of the record bins? What this moving needs is Jerry Bruckheimer. I can see the Smashmouth comeback now. On second thought, maybe not such a good idea. But Danny Boyle needs to stick to smack and zombies, I guess. How sad.

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