SUNSHINE doesn't quite shine. The production design is terrific, there are scenes of shock and awe, the acting is solid, it touches on important themes and yet, it ends up a misfire.
The film basically remains within the ship for almost the entire length, and that's fine, but without a framing story, you really feel like you are entering a film missing a first reel. You do eventually get caught up in the drama of this mission to the Sun, but then, all kinds of dramatic contrivances (both interesting and confused) get tossed into the mix without adding to the central story. In fact, the last of them, totally torpedos the last act.
By Hollywood standards, a modestly budget film, SUNSHINE has some spectacular visuals. The details seem to be right (though the interiors of the craft are, as usual, too large to be practical). The EVA suits looked cool on one hand, but the Samurai Suit meets Deep Sea Diving look reads as more designed than realistic. One question which both SUNSHINE and the somewhat similar SOLAR CRISIS never really address is why the missions wouldn't be unmanned ones which would make far more scientific sense considering the complexity of habitation anywhere close to a Sun (Dramatic purposes, of course, but the films should have made more plausible cases for the manned mission).
2001 and the Russian SOLARIS remain the gold standard for the deep space mission pictures, with nods to the Czech VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE (aka IKARIE XB-1 if you can find an uncut version) and the dark comedic version, DARK STAR (SUNSHINE has a character named "Pinbacker" which must be an homage to the latter film's "Pinback", no?).
Why is it that in so many of these spaceflight films, the crew are always at each other's throats and getting unhinged? If the Russian and U.S. space histories are examined, you don't find any major incidents (Granted, the missions - so far - have been much briefer and less distant); Indeed, quite the opposite. Even during the critical days of Apollo 13, the crew banded together, not apart.
-- On SOLAR CRISIS, there are a few more parallels, including both films having Japanese characters as critical to the missions. Other similarities are there, but would verge closer to spoiler territory. SUNSHINE certainly succeeds better than SOLAR CRISIS, but neither is a winner.
-- SUNSHINE would have done OK with the Boston audience if it had played in February at the Marathon (as was attempted, but the booking was thwarted by the distributor). Boston audiences seem to appreciate premieres unless they are totally without merit (i.e. STAR CRYSTAL). I won't lobby for it at SF/33. In the future it could make an appearance I suppose, but it isn't essential. It would probably get a mixed reaction.
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