Sunshine [2007] (DVD)

It is the year 2057 and our sun is dying. Mankind's last hope lies with the crew of eight men and women onboard the 'Icarus II' and with the payload it carries: a 'stellar bomb' with a mass equivalent to that of Manhattan island and created with the last of Earths fissile materials. By launching the bomb into the heart of our sun they hope to re-ignite the star and thereby rescue Earth from its inevitable demise. Seven years earlier the 'Icarus I' failed in its attempt to deliver a payload and all communications were lost with the ship. However, sixteen months into their journey and fifty-five million miles away from home, as 'Icarus II' passes into the dark side of ...  Read the complete review

Sunshine is a science-fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and with a script written by Alex Garland. The actors and actresses I generally haven't heard of before, but include Cliff Curtis, Cillian Murphy and Rose Byrne. Plot-wise, it's 50 years from now, and the earth is becoming cold and inhabitable as the sun is dying and the only way in which they can save the earth is to drop a payload into the sun. Interestingly, on the commentary, the scientific adviser said that although this is highly unlikely to ever happen, there are circumstances where such an event might be possible. The payload in question has to be dropped into the sun by a space ...  Read the complete review

Opening with a damning speech about the dying of the sun and the effect it will have in mankind, Sunshine sets its stall exactly as it means to go on. A group of mismatched (aren't they always) astronauts - each experts in their own specific field - are aboard the second Icarus space shuttle. Upfront of said shuttle is a giant nuclear bomb which they will hurtle straight into the sun to reignite it. The challenge is to get there without using up all of their resources, and still have enough air to get them back to Earth which is a couple of years away in distance. When a tragic fire fuels up in their oxygen area, rather than lose 3 of their crew, they veer in a different ...  Read the complete review

Its been a lucrative summer for director Danny Boyle with two of his movies sitting comfortably in the Blockbuster top ten, the cracking sequel to 28 Days Later-which he produced-also doing good business. Although the Blockbuster chart is a load of nonsense it does highlight the fact that Boyle is a British director we can be proud of and everyone seems to be into his slick and inventive movies these days. Like ‘28 Days Later’ this was also an adaptation of an Alex Garland book. The two seem to work very well together. I suppose ‘Sunshine’ will have to be my belated Halloween film entry (rather tenuously) as this sci-fi corker has a little bit of horror ...  Read the complete review

**contains spoilers!** Apocalypses are everywhere these days. Back in the 1990s, we didn't take them so seriously. End of the world scenarios were part of the bloated endgame of the 1980s action movie, a few technologically-aided, computer-generated steps down the road of bigger threats and louder explosions. However, the ethos and underlying logic of the films is, by and large, the same: a few larger-than-life villains are easily dealt with by a suave, macho, hero, often aided by a wisecracking sidekick, enabling a good bit of strictly hetero male bonding. The fact that films like Armageddon could imagine threats to the entire human race in terms ...  Read the complete review