Sunday, April 8, 2007

Sunshine




Saw Sunshine the other day, and what can I say? It had more of an impact as a preview than it did as a movie. I really wanted to like this movie to its silver comprised film, but sad to say the hype that the preview built up just didn't live up to its potential.

The Films premise is that for some strange yet unexplained reason our sun is already dying. Its brightness has decreased by so much that it subjects the earth to yet another ice age. This is all in context however as you don't even get to see earth until the end of the film. Now the earth in desperation launches a mission to the sun that plans to have a team blow up a massive bomb with a combined density comparable to "Manhattan" inside the sun to have it re-ignite into a brand spanking new one. There is a snag however, as the mission apparently never makes it. So they launch another one (the Icarus 2) on an identical mission with an identical bomb. Basically thats the films onset, and the poo starts to hit the fan when on their final approach to the mission area (the sun) they receive a distress signal from the first ship. They argue whether or not to go, and it all falls upon the smart physicist of the team to determine whether or not they go. Blah blah... Long story short, the earth can no longer create Manhattan sized bombs as the planet can only apparently yield two, so the physicist decides that a second bomb may come in handy as there are sooooo many variables to consider and that the bombs themselves are untested. People die on the way to the first ship, and even more people die in the process of leaving the first ship. Hum.... Eventually everyone dies but the earth is saved (you start to see that a mile a way).

The actors were actually well played (I'm no pro critic) but Chris Evans carried his character well, you end up rooting for his character to live through the ordeals he encounters, and you have to admire how his character bites the dust eventually. Michelle Yeoh could've had more screen time, I also enjoyed her character but found that she lacked a bit more screen and talk time. The lead actor was also adept, but Chris Evans ends up stealing a lot of the scenes because his character just plays cooler that the lead ones physicist role.

I liked the film in a sense that it had promise, it had potential, but somewhat lacked in execution and plot development. Still watchable though, but its no event horizon or anything, though I strongly felt that at times it was trying to be.