SUNSHINE: FILLED WITH BRILLIANCE YET OFTEN MUDDLED BY THE LIGHT

Danny Boyle is one of those filmmakers who has often straddled that line between style and substance while always exploring the boundaries of different genres and stories. In all of his films — from Shallow Grave and Trainspotting through 28 Days Later and Millions. Unlike many big-budget Hollywood filmmakers (as always, I’m looking at you first Michael Bay, but there are plenty of others in your hacky wake), Boyle usually winds up on the proper side of that line giving the audience an exciting, often jaw-dropping experience visually, thematically and narratively. With his new film Sunshine, he goes from putting his own spins on zombie films and whimsical family fables (and arguably, reinventing both) to tackling the claustrophobic Sci-Fi epic. Sunshine is a generational descendant of 2001 and Alien, containing distinct similarities and influences from both films (and others) while simultaneously feeling utterly unique, fresh and even revolutionary.

And yet, even with such virtual hyperbole, Sunshine may not achieve classic status. Exiting a screening last week, I found myself conflicted having left a movie that had so much going for it, but that also includes so many teeny-tiny completely-avoidable-yet-still-distracting holes that I feel like a teacher needing to deduct extra points for carelessness. In this case, it’s nearly impossible for me to argue (at least with myself) that style doesn’t get the better of Boyle’s storytelling and in some very simple ways.

The film’s greatest strength winds up doubling as its Achilles heel. Visually (and technically, overall), Sunshine is a tremendous achievement and absolutely beautiful to watch. (I had the misfortune of seeing it on a relatively small screen and will likely try to go see it again on the biggest screen I can find. If ever a movie should be converted for IMAX projection, it’s this one.) The obvious CGI and composite images are only obvious because logic dictates that the filmmakers did not fly past Venus and Mercury to shoot on location. The lighting inside the spaceships is subtle in its various gradations towards shadow and yet dramatic all the time. And the sequences in which the full power of the sun burns through are some of the best action sequences involving no actual “action” or movement you’ll see, certainly this year.

And yet (two words which are obviously the motif for this review), the sweeping shots of the outside of the ship, the quick camera movements and edits during various interior sequences, and the deliberate blurring and distortion that exists through much of the second half of the film virtually all the way up to the climax create an enormous problem: much of the time, it’s simply hard to follow what’s going on. I don’t mean in the macro, but rather in the micro of the storytelling, and especially in the simple geography of the film. It is exceedingly difficult much of the time to simply follow who is where and how they’re getting from here to there. When the first major crisis starts involving a gigantic fire inside the ship, it just sort of happens. The simple why and how make perfect sense — some rays of sun came through a window — but how that window (one of the apparent few without a shield) even was in a place to be exposed is somewhat baffling. While this may seem like a small point, it’s a major element of the plot for if this fire does not occur, every following decision in the story might be unnecessary.

Ah, the story. The script by Alex Garland (who collaborates with Boyle for the third time after writing 28 Days Later as well as the novel The Beach) is generally a good one with an interesting and entertaining story at its core (even if the archetypal elements are virtually paint-by-numbers). It’s the second half of the 21st Century, and apparently, our sun is dying. The Earth is on the verge of a new ice age, and some sort of international confederation has decided that the only way to save humanity is to fly through space to the sun and drop a nuclear bomb with the mass of Manhattan directly into its core. The explosion would give the sun’s heart a little jump start, creating a new star within the old one and thereby saving life here at home.

The bomb was designed and developed by Capa (Cillian Murphy), a young physicist, who with seven others make up the crew of the Icarus II. Why “II”?Because there was already one mission that mysteriously failed. All seemed to be going fine when the first Icarus sent back its final transmission before entering the dead zone making communication impossible, but they were never heard from again and the sun continued to die. And away goes Icarus II.

For the most part, the crew seems relatively well-adjusted considering the cabin fever they must be experiencing after their already lengthy journey. Sure, the ships medical doctor and psychiatrist, Searle (Cliff Curtis), seems to be going a bit loony giving himself sunburns on the observation deck, and Mace (a phenomenal Chris Evans) gets a bit hot under the collar when he misses his chance to send a final message home before the ship loses its communications capability because Capa unintentionally spends so much time sending his own. But for the most part, things seem relatively calm and everyone does his/her job.

That is, until a bizarre communications beacon is discovered and the crew realizes it is the distress signal of the first Icarus ship, coming from the bright side of Mercury. A decision must be made: even though it has been seven years and the crew is likely dead, should the Icarus II change course in order to investigate and, more importantly, capture the payload (re: nuclear bomb) on the first ship in order to make a second attempt in case the first detonation doesn’t solve the problem. Mace vehemently argues against changing course stating that nothing is more important than their mission to delivery the payload, but Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) hands the decision over to Capa. It’s up to the physicist to decide whether the risks of going after and retrieving the second payload are less than the potential benefit of having this backup.

From there, as you might expect, small decisions lead to small problems that quickly snowball into much larger ones. The story also takes a turn about half-way through from 2001 territory into Alien territory, or rather, it goes from being an alone-in-space psycho-thriller to a bit more of a monster chase movie, albeit in a way that is mostly convincing and definitively philosophical. And yet, the kinds of questions left over concerning some very basic elements of the narrative are those nagging annoying ones that some (like me) might find hard to let go.

Like the technical achievement, the performances are superb across the board. Capa is the audience’s surrogate on this journey, and Murphy makes the character supremely empathetic. His physical stature — or relative lack of one — helps quite a bit; his scrawny features don’t exactly scream big outer-space action hero. But it’s his eyes and mannerisms that really draw the audience in. Murphy’s eyes are the kind of blue that seems to only exist in Mediterranean waters, and he speaks with them constantly. Capa is obviously one of the smartest men on Earth, but Muphy’s mannerisms and occasional little-boy-lost expression gives us a much fuller character with insecurities and fears that make perfect sense to those of us gripping our seats.

Evans was utterly unrecognizable to me as Mace. He’s not cocky Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four here, looking, sounding and acting like a completely different person. Yeah, that’s his job, but it still shocked the hell out of me. Mace is, in many ways, the moral and ethical center of the film even as he at times makes decisions that would seem counter to that statement. He is the ship’s mechanic and a pilot, and he may not have the intellectual capabilities of Capa, but he’s also the only one who consistently thinks of their mission and its importance to the survival of the entire human race over anything else. He is the most consistent character and in many ways the most honorable character. It would have been too easy for some actor to portray him as a simple tough-guy meathead, but Evans avoids that trap never allowing him to become as plain, simple or unidimensional as, say … oh, I don’t know … Johnny Storm. (Ah, how a better script and director can help an actor, no?)

The rest of the cast also acquits itself admirably, particularly Curtis, Michelle Yeoh and Rose Byrne. Yeoh brilliantly squeezes every inch of hope and happiness out of a brief scene where she sees the promise and vitality of life in a small sprout managing to survive the ship’s major fire. It’s a brief but beautiful moment that makes what follows all the more dramatic and jarring.

And yet (there we go again), “dramatic and jarring” play both positive and negative in Sunshine. In a film with tremendous conflict that studies philosophical concepts such as humanism and self-sacrifice while also examining mankind’s power (or lack of it) over the world and universe around us, it’s unfortunate that a question as simple as, “When the hell did they dock with the other ship?” can detract and distract from total immersion in this otherwise magnificent world provided to us. The Icarus II diverted from its course in order to give itself a second chance at succeeding in its mission should the first one fail. Just getting to Mercury, let alone the sun, was a pretty major achievement though. Similarly, Boyle takes Sunshine pretty far, but it seems that in dropping his payload, he skimmed the surface rather than scoring a direct hit. Sunshine is this close to being a Sci-Fi masterpiece much like its predecessors, but instead it’s just … not.