Absolutely Fantastic

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I would give this movie a 7.5 if I could. It has a tremendous cast with a realistic outcome. It will keep you on the edge of your seat. However the only reason I didn't give this a higher rating is because I wasn't a big fan of how the ending kind of turned into a slasher like Jason X. That left me with so many questions that they didn't really answer. How could he have survived not only that long, but able to make it into their ship still alive. Either way if you don't look too deep into the scientific accuracy, it's a thrill ride from beginning to end.

In a similar category of Armageddon this film depicts a crew that is sent to detonate a solar bomb into the sun to re-ignite it so to speak. The premise is the sun is dying and the world will go into total darkness and freeze everyone.The plausibility of this actually being able to occur in the law of physics and cosmology, it is a mute point. However in the glorious revolution of film anything is possible. The plot itself takes place on a space satellite called Icarus, transitioning towards the sun and the lives of the 8 crew members. Brilliantly written, as the effort given by each character gives to the atmosphere in which decision making is crucial.The cinematography and editing are well placed throughout the film and the entire movie moves at a good pace. Chris Evans, Cliff Curtis, Cillian Murphy all give top notch performances. I give this a well deserved 7/10

If you're the kind of viewer whose idea of a good sci-fi movie is anything with lots of special effects, explosions, clichés and shaky-cam, then this is the movie for you. If you have two brain cells to rub together, run from this movie as fast as you can. I watched it because I had read some positive reviews that said it's a great sci-fi movie. Those reviews were wrong.Let's start with the cliché check-list. The last-ditch mission to save a doomed Earth (in this case, re-lighting the sun with a nuclear bomb. Seriously.) The previous mission that went missing and turns up as a ghost ship. The brave captain who sacrifices himself to fix the heat shield and save his crew. The oxygen is running low, so someone has to die. The one guy who doesn't like the main character and undermines him every chance he gets. There's only one spacesuit and there's four of us. The computer's down so someone will have to stay bend and open the airlock manually. A "blasting from one ship's airlock to the other ship's open airlock" scene that was stolen right out of 2001. Etc, etc.Then there's the sheer stupidity and nonsense. The ship's mission, already covered. The fact that the navigator calculates a course change BY HAND and (big surprise) makes a mistake, despite the ship being equipped with an advanced computer. The fact that the ship tries to override them whenever they want to do something dangerous, but DOESN'T warn them that their course change is going to expose part of the ship to the deadly rays of the sun. The fact that the bomb expert, who later on in the movie is so important that he gets the spacesuit when four guys are about to run out of air, is sent on the super-dangerous mission to fix the heat shield just because the guy who doesn't like him says he should go. Etc, etc.But say you can get past all that. This movie commits the cardinal sin that so many big-budget sci-fi movies do - in the last act it turns into a horror movie. And not even a good one, but an illogical, pointless slasher flick.Everything that all the other 1 star reviews say about this movie is true, and I have no idea WHAT movie the people who gave this mess 7 or more stars were watching. It's just awful. Avoid at all costs.

The premise of a group of people alone in space has been done many times before Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" and it has been done since then and it will probably continue to be done over and over again. But what these films rarely nail is the atmosphere of isolation, claustrophobia, and our insignificance in the face of the vast emptiness of space, which is why "Sunshine" is so engrossing and exciting to watch - and why it is so disappointing in its last 20 minutes.The film starts during the dying gasps of humanity. One ship (which is fittingly named Icarus) with a bomb strapped to it to be launched into the dying sun as an attempt to create a "star within a star" has already failed for unknown reasons, so a new ship with a crew of seven has been sent to try and accomplish this same mission. This is humanity's last chance at salvation.In the first shot of the film, the ship is shown as a tiny black blip engulfed by the size of the sun. There is a room solely for the purpose of viewing the sun, obviously with modifications so that it won't fry your eyeballs. This room is one way that the crew members try to maintain their hope for their mission and their sanity. Another is apparently by sending video messages back to their friends and family, but the film starts at the moment when the messages can no longer reach Earth. While Capa (Cillian Murphy) is able to send out one final hopeful message to his family, Mace (Chris Evans) is unable to, and blames Capa for making him wait too long. This seems to be the beginning of the crew's downward spiral.As they pass Mercury, the crew suddenly hears a signal coming from its surface. This is one of the only movies where the scientists in it act like actual scientists. Of course, they make mistakes, because they are also human, but when a problem such as this arises, they consider all of the possible benefits and risks that could arise from both decisions and eventually leave it up to the crew member that is most educated for this particular situation. They argue, and they each have equally understandable opinions on what they should do, but they never jump to conclusions. All the scientific explanation that is done also feels much less forced than other films of this type because it is made clear that everyone on the ship specializes in something different, such as botany, or psychology, or physics, or piloting, and of course there is overlap between all of them but when a scientific subject is being explained to other characters, it doesn't feel like something they should already know. In other words, it feels like explanation that would logically be delivered to the characters in the film, not just something they needed to explain to the audience at home.Despite the film's sense of overwhelming impending doom, you are never quite sure what exactly will happen in the film, just that the end result isn't going to be good. What helps build this unsettling atmosphere is the eerie score for the film, as well as the claustrophobic camera work, with many tight, confined shots down the corridors of the ship, and Dutch camera angles, so it always feels like something is askew. And I know that a film based entirely in space with 2007 CGI and special effects may not sound like it would hold up, but the visuals are surprisingly gorgeous and detailed, with a clear understanding of how to blend practical effects and CGI to create a convincing environment.It's a shame that the tension that slowly builds throughout the film ends up being ruined by a rushed and nonsensical ending. After a certain character is suddenly introduced that has no logical explanation to be in the ship, or in the film at all, it suddenly becomes a corny slasher film. And by that I mean the character literally has a voice like Freddy Kreuger and spouts lines dumber than that intentionally dumb horror villain. To add insult to injury, they have a sugarcoated solution in the end that feels like it came out of an entirely different film.But the unintentionally funny ending doesn't make the entire film bad. The first hour and 25 minutes is still one of the most immersive, smartly written, and visually stunning sci-fi thrillers I've ever seen.