[CRITICAL] SUNSHINE

In 2003, Steven Soderbergh came out Solaris. Home more or less mixed for a film responding to the call of a George Clooney in distress that a real science-fiction film of good quality. In 2007, after Million – a output-almost unnoticed – Danny Boyle realizes Sunshine and resumed a relationship with the actor already present in one of his previous films, 28 Days Later, Cillian Murphy.

But where Soderbergh has failed and where Boyle succeeds, it is in the frame of a scenario much better-crafted and suspense that rises in a crescendo throughout the film. As a bonus, it has the right to a little wink to Stanley Kubrick and his 2001, a Space Odyssey, since Solaris also contains an onboard computer, named Icarius. Only difference, it is a woman’s voice.

We talked of suspense also, it is there, sometimes heavy, sometimes evocative, but always in the background. Explanations are given in the course of the film. Data, the beginnings of clarification. But nothing is provided in raw, and on. The time is well managed so the tempo is maintained, and the action comes to those who wait.

At the level of the casting, you may recognize easily enough Chris Evans (Sex Academy, Cellular, Fantastic 4), Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Batman Begins), Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies, crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon, Memoirs of A Geisha) and Rose Byrne (the series Damages). You see, these are all actors who have more or less marked the cinema in recent years, and from different backgrounds different geographical. A special mention to Cillian Murphy who I had done well tripper in the film of Wes Craven, Red Eye. The rest I have not marked more than that, I don’t mention any of that.

The action takes place in 2057, and you may realize that the Man can already travel far, very far, up to Mercury, and even beyond, up to the Sun. There are some glitches in the level of feasibility of some of the scenes – to 20 meters per -270°C with as the only “garment” of the coating of fuselage, for example – but the whole remains coherent and there would be almost no more attention to this kind of thing. It is all the same in a science fiction movie, let’s not forget. The fact to be able to approach a star like the Sun so closely, to be able to look at his own eyes – with proper safeguards – is something that I have always personally fascinated. Astronomy fascinates me, and I can only be in turmoil to this kind of scene.

“A good film, well-made, but far enough to transcend the genre of” Click To Tweet

You can also ask questions about the future and the future of our planet and our solar system. There is a slight background of humanism in Sunshine : 7 Men, alone, cut off from the world, and travelling to several years of the Earth. It can make people think. The scenario is signed by Alex Garland, who also 28 Days Later or The Beach.

Finally and to summarize, Sunshine is a good film, well-made, but is far to transcend the genre. However, even by his next thriller, and its action is well mounted, it succeeds where others may fail.

We end up with a small note astronomical : It is estimated that in 5 billion years the Sun will have exhausted its reserves of hydrogen. Every second, a star dies in our universe.

Yannick

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