Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller is enjoyable, well acted and packed with references throughout although it abandons its fascinating premise for a disappointingly conventional finale.
Sunshine (2007)
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Troy Garity, Cliff Curtis
Screenwriter: Alex Garland
Producer: Andrew MacDonald
Composer: Underworld, John Murphy
DVD Info
Release:
Aug 1, 2008
DVD Features:
- Keep Case
- Widescreen
Audio:
- Dolby Digital Surround - French, Spanish
- Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
- Subtitles - English - Optional
Additional Release Material:
- Alternate Scenes - 1. Deleted Scenes (12)
- 2. Alternate Ending
- Audio Commentaries - 1. Danny Boyle - Director
- 2. Dr. Brian Cox - University Professor
- Behind the Scenes - Web Production Diaries (23)
- Bonus Shorts - 1. "Dad's Dead" (Introduction by Danny Boyle)
- 2. "Mole Hills" (Introduction by Danny Boyle)
Reviews
This is Sci-fi at its proudest; an incredible achievement that reminds us why Danny Boyle is the best British director working today.
Brilliantly mixes eye-popping effects and edge-of-your-seat action to make this sci-fi scorcher the hottest ticket around.
Sunshine is dazzling, but not quite a blinder - your eyeballs may be singed, but don't expect any long-lasting effects on your cosmic consciousness.
Stunning sequences and gobsmacking Nasa-graphic visuals which are destined to be shown on giant Imax screens around the country.
The only thing more dazzling than the angry star throbbing at the centre of our dying solar system is the production design on Danny Boyle’s visually arresting sci-fi picture.
A blazingly intense sci-fi thriller and a blinding visual experience.
The idea is to send you out perplexed, but chattering over possible solutions, but the salty authenticity that made it so rich is lost in space, and a superb sci-fi movie becomes merely a very decent one.
Sci-fi spectacle meets intimate drama. Murphy leads a strong ensemble cast as Boyle nails yet another genre.
It’s in the relationship between the crew and the sun that ‘Sunshine’ really shines.
Aside from a last-act blip when everything goes a little bit “what the hell?”, this is a knuckle-gnawingly tense, glorious action thriller and marks yet another genre nailed by Danny Boyle.
The closer he gets to the sun, the more Boyle loses his nerve, reducing a tense, unpredictable thriller to a needlessly bloody, pseudo-spiritual mess.
A decent science-fiction movie which despite its solid overall production would surely have been a lot better had the momentum and ethereal quality of its first two acts been smoothly transitioned into the finale.
Boyle and his cast set the controls to the heart of the sun and drive the interstellar pilgrimage beyond the dubious science and rickety story line with magnificent imagery and a gravity that pulls you in.
It may, at the very end, be a failure, but it’s a glorious failure.
The picture would be nothing, an incomplete Venn diagram, without Murphy.
One of the most inventive and fascinating science-fiction films in decades.
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