Sunshine

Starring: Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benny Wong, Michelle Yeoh

Director: Danny Boyle (28 Days Later)

Runtime: 107 minutes, Rated: R

Fifty years from now Earth’s Sun is dying the Earth is cooling and if this continues life will end. All the countries of the world pool their resources to develop a spaceship capable of reaching the Sun and delivering its payload which is a rather large stellar bomb whose purpose is to reignite the Sun.

Sunshine begins with its crew of eight astronauts on the spaceship Icarus II. Seven years earlier Icarus I was sent out on the same mission but contact was lost several months after the launch. Imagine being on Icarus II and the tremendous pressure of flying in space for months on end with the knowledge that you may be Earth’s last hope.

Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) is both Captain of the spaceship and a referee, when needed. Searle (Cliff Curtis) is the ships psychologist and there are times when he sure has his hands full. Mace (Chris Evans – Fantastic 4) is the ships engineer. Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) is the ships botanist whose garden provides both fresh food and oxygen for the crew. Capa (Cillian Murphy) is a physicist and has one of the most important jobs on the ship – blow up the stellar bomb. Cassie (Rose Byrne) is the ships pilot. Harvey (Troy Garity) is the communications officer. And rounding out the crew is Trey (Benny Wong) who is the navigator.

The crew faces life and death situations and has to make decisions that nobody wants to make. Of course, not everything goes quite as smoothly as the crew would like but it’s those little bitty problems (well not so little bitty) that bring out their total dedication to the mission.

The actor’s performances were outstanding and the interaction between the crew members was wonderful to watch. The film’s special effects were nicely done, especially the Sun. Sunshine was a combination of sci-fi and fantasy though 50 years into the future do we really know what to expect.

A personal thought is that I was sorry to assume that the global warming organizations were forced to reprint their stationary (what the heck, global cooling – yea we can stay in business).

Check out the website http://www.foxsearchlight.com/sunshine

The film is rated “R” for some graphic violence and language.

I would recommend the film and rate it a “B+”. - Len Berger, ConNotations Film Editor