Amoeba Music

Danny Boyle knows how to engage you. He knows, more than most other directors, how to scoot your butt to the edge of the seat, whiten your knuckles as they grip the armrest and give you a stress headache from furrowed brows. The man just keeps pushing it higher, faster, and closer to the edge. What edge? Any edge - that's the kicker - you don't know where the edge is or where it's coming from. It could be around the corner or RIGHT THERE. Seriously, you could fall at any moment.

Sunshine is a perfect heart pounding pulse kicking, monster mouth drying example. The stakes? Only the planet and all mankind. The risk? Dying alone in space in a myriad of painfully awful ways including murder and knowing in your last moments that history died with you.

Space is cold and silent and scary and for the crew of the Icarus II it has been home for 8 months as they travel with the “payload,” a bomb dense enough to reignite our dying sun. Gently we are introduced to a crew who behave like a smart but somewhat loveless family each focusing more on their own tasks, trying to keep business as usual as is probably pertinent on a mission to save the planet. But some are slipping, and the effects of isolation are burning through. When they discover the failed Icarus I still floating in space the decision to detour or move ahead transforms the cool and contemplative movie-in-space to a jolting, thrilling, horrifying, suspense, action extravaganza! If it sounds like I'm exaggerating with so many adjectives then you haven't seen many Danny Boyle movies. Sunshine might try a little too hard to blow your mind in bits but the visuals are like sugar for the eyes. Gorgeous, thrilling and a little cosmic, Sunshine is a fine bit of science fiction that could ruin furniture if you haven't trimmed your fingernails.