Sunshine - a brief rant

[dalekboy]

Just watched Sunshine, the sci-fi film by Danny Boyle where a bunch of astronauts and scientists are trying to restart the sun.

I didn't mind the first hour or so. We get to know the crew, we see their interactions and the pressures that they are under. Even going to find Icarus 1 didn't annoy me too much, though there was no reason they couldn't have tried their bomb first, and if it didn't work, then try the other ship. Okay, I can think of one or two reasons why, but they were never stated.

No, what seriously shat me was the mad killer from the other ship. It felt like an afterthought - Oh let's put in a killer, that'll be cool! The film didn't need it. There were enough obstacles and issues for it to run beginning to end and be quite a reasonable film. It didn't need burnt, nudey, killer-boy!

Neither did it need him hunting down the two female characters. So many characters die, there was no need for both women to be hunted. I was already annoyed at the killer aspect, then he took out one woman, missed out with one of the guys, then went after the next one. What the fuck? Totally gratuitous and pointless.

Lastly, all the weird distortions and editing while dealing with psycho-boy... What the hell was that about? Seriously, for an important chunk of the ending I had no idea about what had just happened. A deleted scene explained one confusing aspect of it, but for the actual action, no idea.

All in all, it's quite a reasonable psychological SF flick that is totally fucked up by the addition of an insane killer for no very good reason.

3/10

Comments

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I vaguely recall something about lots of creatively bad science and a brain-twisting WTF leap in the script. The kind that makes you wonder if you've skipped a chapter on the DVD.

[hibikiryouga.livejournal.com]

The psycho-boy aspect was really daft, and the total change to the visual style once he woke up, was rather interesting, but totally out of place.

What really annoyed me, was the contradictory science.

The ship uses proper space propulsion, one burst of energy in the right direction, then coast through the vacuum and minimalistic gravity of open space. Minor bursts of energy are used every now and then for directional corrections. They even go to the point of using the gravity of Mercury to gain a little more speed.

They then stop on a dime when they find Icarus 1, without much effort. There are more examples of this sort of contradicting the intelligent premise they started with, but it's been so long since I watched it.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I really, really liked it. I thought the psycho guy in the other ship was a brilliant twist. At first I thought they were heading into Event Horizon territory, but when it turned out it was just a horribly scarred totally insane guy I was really impressed.

Plus it has Rose Byrne in it and she's brilliant. So is Michelle Yeoh, and the Japanese captain whose name I can't remember but he's tops too.

[hibikiryouga.livejournal.com]

I rather enjoyed the film, just a few bits jarred.