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Danny Boyle’s 2007 science-fiction/psychological thriller Sunshine flew mostly under the radar upon its release, but any self-proclaimed sci-fi nerd worth their salt owes this movie a watch. There’s uncertainty around the actual budget of the film with reports ranging anywhere between twenty-three to forty-five million dollars. Chalk up the disparity to including or not including marketing cost perhaps, but that’s a weird phenomenon, for there to be a relative lack of concreteness. Either way, the film didn’t do well financially.
According to Box Office Mojo, its world-wide domestic gross in ticket sales was only thirty-four million (funny how with movies, one can say “only” and be referring to millions of dollars, but that’s another conversation). It’s garnered a modicum of popularity with VOD and streaming sites and has been featured on its fair share of “Top 10 Underrated” lists, but there’s still room for growth in the popularity of this beautifully flawed film and an argument to be made for it as a sci-fi masterpiece.
What Is Sunshine?
Sunshine is an end-of-days space thriller about a crew of astronauts aboard the Icarus II spacecraft delivering a nuclear bomb into the heart of a dying Sun in hopes of restoring the star. When the crew picks up the distress signal of Icarus I, the crew that piloted a failed initial attempt to deliver a similar payload into the Sun, they’re faced with a difficult question: continue with their mission or veer to the spacecraft, in hopes of finding survivors and, more importantly, securing an additional nuclear bomb.
This proves disastrous and sets the course for the final leg of the crew’s journey to be a bumpy one. Racing against dwindling resources and the mounting fear of their own demise, the crew hurdles toward the Sun in a last-ditch effort to “deliver the payload” and save all mankind.
What Makes Sunshine Great?
The selling points for this film come down to its premise and the realism with which it is handled, the characters, and the score and visuals.
Engaging Premise With Realistic Qualities
Dying suns and the pre-eminent extinction of all mankind is the kind of bait that will reel in almost any sci-fi fan, but this film’s plot is more than just a run-of-the-mill space adventure with world-ending stakes. Maybe it’s in the grounded nature of how the characters approach their mission, but there is a level of depth and nuance to this film in general, but especially in regard to the scientific elements; that’s somewhat lost in other space epics.
The science in this film feels tactile and precise in a way that not all sci-fi flick science is. It’s more than just cool space-walking scenes (though this film does have some fantastic space-walking scenes). There’s a level of care levied at the cool science-y moments to ensure that yeah, the scenes are cool, but they’re also relatively practical or, at the very least, conceivable, and that really adds to the film.
Well-Developed Characters
Each crew member of Icarus II is given enough screen-time to feel fleshed out and complex. Capa (portrayed by Cillian Murphy), the crews’ lead physicist, is the character the film follows most closely, but that’s really just a matter of optics. Chris Evans’s performance as Mace, the crews’ technician, is equally as important and engaging. Hiroyuki Sanada plays a very subtle but integral part in the film as the ship’s captain, Kaneda.
Additionally, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, and Benedict Wong turn in good performances as the remaining crew members: Cassie, Corazon, Searle, Harvey, and Trey.
Superb Score And Visuals
While Sunshine underperformed at the box office, its score, which is awesome, has had a shelf-life outside of the movie. “Adagio in D Minor” is one of the tensest and miraculous songs to ever be part of a film score. Hearing it in the film for the first time is absolutely exhilarating, and it improves the suspense of the film tenfold. Uses of “Adagio in D Minor” since Sunshine have varied in effectiveness. It works okay in some The Walking Dead episodes and in Kick-Ass. It comes off really cliché and melodramatic in Wonder Woman 1984 and some movie trailers. Other positive standouts from the score are “Capa’s Jump” and “Distortions.”
In addition to the really compelling score, the visuals in Sunshine are top-notch too. The visuals of Sunshine don’t simply hold up against more recent big-budget films; they arguably surpass them. With the advancements that have been had in CGI, especially in the past decade, it’d make sense that what Sunshine had to offer would’ve been lessened in terms of impressiveness, but that’s simply not the case. It’s still visually stunning. The scenes involving the overwhelming brightness and vastness of the Sun come to mind particularly, but the Icarus II spacecraft is breathtaking to see on screen as well.
Where Sunshine Falls Short
Honestly, it’s really just the final act and Icarus I crew plotline.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Now that those concerned have been warned: after the demise of the Icarus I crew is revealed and the captain, Pinbacker, comes into play as a delusional villain of sorts, pulling the strings and causing the crew to falter in completing their mission, the film begins to falter a bit as well. The conclusion is still satisfying as the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that was at the heart of the film’s suspense is answered, but the detour into loony-guy-slashing-people-up territory is unwarranted and really unnecessary.
So What Do We Make Of Sunshine?
Sunshine falls victim to trying to do too much, which is an, almost, admirable shortcoming to have. The film should have trusted that just in witnessing the crew persevere against space and outside factors, the audience would remain engaged. The murderous, knife-wielding bad guy elements incorporated in the final act really only work to undo the level of realism and nuance the film had otherwise accomplished through its portrayal of grounded sci-fi with intelligent, well-rounded characters. However, despite its one major shortcoming, Sunshine still deserves to be lauded as a sci-fi film worthy of being revisited and remembered for generations to come.
