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Another Review From The Manchester SUNSHINE Screening!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I have a good friend who is about to drive to Mexico to see this, where Fox plans to release it in two weeks. I’m still not sure why they’re waiting so long to bring it to the US, but for now, we’re going to have to ask our buddies overseas to tell us what they think of it.
We ran a review the other day from the Manchester special screening, and so far, everything we’ve been hearing has been mixed-to-mediocre. Let’s see what “Mooch” has to say about it:
In what must have been a life-long ambition of his, the other night Danny Boyle brought Sunshine to Manchester. Proud manc Boyle is a patron of the city's Cornerhouse cinema and always takes his new films there for previews. For anyone who wants to know a regular film geek's opinion on it, I'd like to share my thoughts.
It stars Cillian Murphy (the shrink-wrapped Tom Welling) and is a sci-fi about a small group of astronaut-scientists who have to save life on Earth by flying to the dying sun and re-igniting it with a massive nuclear bomb.
To borrow the review structure from the excellent magazine Little White Lies, I would say my anticipation of this movie was 3 out of 5. I thought it sounded awful when I first heard about it and nothing the director has done since Trainspotting has really made me think his great work was ahead of him, but the hype around the release has been doing its job on me and so I was looking forward to it, just not expecting - in the parlance of our times - a shotgun full of handjobs.
For at-the-time enjoyment I'll give it 4 out of 5. From the brilliant opening minutes that pitch-perfectly set the tone, I was falling in love with this movie. There are some wonderful sequences and a number of tendon-snappingly tense scenes. The visuals are both beautiful and exciting - Boyle, the effects team and the cinematographer have done a stunning job and come up with some really incredible images. It must have presented a whole funfair of headaches for brilliant DP Alwin Kuchler (Ratcatcher, The Claim) but he's certainly come out with distinction. The production design is also top-notch, from the utilitarian spaceship interiors to the fascistic desolation of the bomb itself. Before the screening the cinema's spokesperson bragged about the sound design and she wasn't wrong, it's extremely impressive. The whole thing has the feel of a true blockbuster.
The problems I had with it arise from parts of the script and the editing. Writer Alex Garland has got a lot of great stuff going for him throughout this movie, some excellent scenes and ideas. But the second half becomes mired in too many generic action moments - they pile well-worn peril on top of well-worn peril and the effect is not a thrill crescendo but a part-mitigation of the good work achieved elsewhere (it was supposed to be the moon that's made of cheese). Worse, during these action scenes it is often difficult to tell exactly what is going on, the rhythms feel truncated, it gets pretty confusing.
By and large the characters are not interesting enough and a number of good actors are wasted, although I suppose... wait for it... the sun is the real star (home run! A premium-rate joke clue helpline is available). Elsewhere blandleader Chris Evans, more meh than a wet Wednesday, runs around at the centre of all the cliches. It's as if he's gone rogue and is trying to sabotage the Boyle/Garland mission. Also, frustratingly, not enough is made of the possibilities briefly wafted before us. For example here's a great plot development in the final third, a real 'Oh shit!' moment, but the idea is quickly thrown away when it could have really lifted the film beyond the infinite. There's a really ridiculous moment at the end too which actually could have worked well if they'd presented it as purely metaphysical instead
of filming it like it was really happening, in real-time. Shockingly, they also fail to properly convey the scale of things like the journey, or the stakes of the mission itself. Or even how unimaginably vast the sun is (room for a million Earths in that thing! A million Earths!) but then, y'know, I guess everyone knows its a big fucker.
Finally in the 'In Retrospect' box I'll mark it 4 out of 5. The action cliches dont stay with me, the spectacle and the fascinating ideas do. I only wish they'd pursued these ideas more, done it with more grandeur - its a short movie and I think they should have given themselves another 30 minutes or more to spread things out and really get to the eigth square with the themes and concepts in play. Dramatically the movie would have benefitted from having more room to make the action less confusing as well. It could have been a really great film. There are the obligatory references to and inescapable echoes of many other sci-fi films and while Sunshine is clearly not in the league of Alien and 2001, other nods and winks to things like Pitch Black serve to remind just how far ahead of the usual pack Boyle's movie is. People are mentioning the accidentally half-decent Event Horizon - somehow made by Paul WS Anderson ('Whenever He Directs, We Lose') - but Sunshine deals with their shared elements a lot more interestingly and is a superior flick. Overall it's a very intense experience, I'll definitely be going again and I do recommend it to both fans of popcorn movies and fans of more thoughtful fare.
Boyle couldn't make it for the Q&A after the screening, although it was still fun with a member of the cast and the film's sexy young consultant Brian Cox (putting the 'scene' in 'science') - it was interesting to hear that they were all well aware of the ridiculousness of that end moment I mentioned, but they'd wanted to keep it in because it's so open to interpretation. Unfortunately, hearing such a passionate and interesting discussion about the film's ideas reinforced the sense that more should have been made of them in the film itself. But all in all it has restored my faith in Danny Boyle and in my mind he has cemented his place in the elite gang of versatile, genre-hobo Brit directors alongside the likes of Stephen Frears and Michael Winterbottom.
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Looking forward to this film...
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rather than the film they actually saw. every AICN review of Sunshine follows an identical formula: "I was really looking forward to this. I really wanted to like it except for the fact that the acting was bad, the writing was bad, it was confusing and the ending sucked. Aside from that, I'd give it 4 out of 5".
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I really enjoyed the movie. I think the acting was great especially from Hiroyuki Sanada and Cillian Murphy. I can understand that some find it kind of confusing (but I like it that way). One of the best science fiction movies of this decade. Not an absolute masterpiece, but definatly worth seeing more than once.
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Steve Soderburg failed when three people went to see Solaris, but Danny Boyle shall triumph!
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Thanks for that, Madchester
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I keep getting my hopes dashed with all these wishy washy reviews. I want SUNSHINE to be really good. Everybody seems to be underwhelmed in seeing it though. But you know what? Every reviewer keeps throwing something out there in the middle of the review that makes me think, "hey, this guy (or girl) says this, or thinks this...I don't agree with that...no way...maybe it'll rub me a different way." For instance, this guy says something to the effect of Danny Boyle's only film worth anything is TRAINSPOTTING. I pretty much like everything the guy's made, personally, movie-wise, unless you include that movie, ALIEN LOVE TRIANGLE, which I've not even heard of. SHALLOW GRAVE, A LIFE LESS ORDINARY, 28 DAYS LATER, MILLIONS. That's a pretty good catalog if you ask me. Even his one producing credit, TWIN TOWN, I had quiet a lot of fun with. The weakest of the bunch here is A LIFE LESS ORDINARY, which wasn't the greatest films, but it was certainly entertaining and original by any standard. On the contrary, Danny Boyle's never made anything to make you think he shouldn't hit SUNSHINE completely out of the hemisphere.
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That was intended to be 3x30 minute-ish stories (by different writers and directors) released as one movie. Apparently, Boyle's segment was the only one completed. It featured Courtney Cox and Kenneth Branagh. I don't know who the other segments were going to be by, but after TRIANGLE fell apart one of them was adapted into the full-length feature IMPOSTER based on a short story by Philip K Dick. I may have some of the details wrong as I'm going by memory, but if Boyle's segment really was completed I would love to have the opportunity to see it sometime. Just release it online or something.
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The reason there are so many 4 star reviews for this movie is because a lot of people think it's worth 4 stars. Seriously, it's not a conspiracy, it could have been a really great movie and in places it is but overall it's let down by a few flaws. To Halloween68: I didn't say Trainspotting was the only Boyle film worth anything, I like all his films its just that I think his subsequent work has not been anything like as great as his extraordinary first 2. About Alien Love Triangle, all three shorts were made but Miramax was so pleased with them all they wanted them expanded into feature length. Gary Fleder did so with Impostor (a reasonable 3 star film) and I believe the second one was what became What Planet Are You From? (Mike Nichols I think? Not seen it, flopped hugely but I have heard that it's not all that bad). Boyle decided not to expand his film and so it has just remained unreleased. Apparently Miramax were sitting on it in case its value as a curio appreciates. Andrew MacDonald said a couple of years ago that he had taken another look at it recently and he still thought it was great.
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no, not really. i've now read 5 reviews of this on AICN and they all sound like fans trying really hard to disguise their disappointment.
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I’ve seen the film twice now in the last week in previews in Dublin and would definitely give it 4/5.
I would agree with the reviewer in that I wish the film was 20 minutes longer and more time was spent on the characters but that’s my only gripe.
Slight spoiler-
There is one scene in the film (where the first character is killed) that is such a mix of visuals, action, awesome music and one character repeatable asking “what do you see” that literally had my mouth hanging open! (okay that does not read as well as it appears in the film). Trust me go see this film.
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it doesn't appear to merit four stars. Everyone just wants it to be. I will go and see this, but am not convinced from the reviews that it has been getting that it is as good as that.
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When it comes to Danny Boyle films a lot of reviewers can’t get over the fact that he directed Trainspotting. Most of the reviews I have read for Sunshine seem to always drop in the fact that he has not made a decent film since his first two. I come from a different view, I never really liked Trainspotting all that much, never really connected with it. Sure it’s well made but with its cast of nasty characters always put me off. Boyle really hit his stride with 28 Days Later and has not looked back since.
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I dont mean to be pissy about this but dont you think Newc0253's and your position on this talkback is a bit ridiculous given that neither of you have seen the movie? "Newco is spot on it doesn't appear to merit four stars"? What does that even mean???? As for "a lot of people think it's worth 4 stars," all three print reviews I've seen so far have given it 4 out of 5 (Empire, Total Film, Uncut).
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in a rating system where 5 is the highest, a 4 rating should be for films that are exceptional. From all accounts Sunshine is, sadly, flawed. A 3star rating would be for films that are better than average, a 2 star rating for average, 1 star for crap and no stars for TPM level crap. Understand? the point is, if this film is as flawed as is generally being stated then it should get 3 not 4 stars.
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You really do need to see a film before being able to disagree with the marks it's been getting and even then it's pretty arrogant to dismiss people's opinions based on making assumptions like "[the reviews are by] fans trying really hard to disguise their disappointment" (as someone else said). As for the 1 - 5 star rating scale, people approach it in different ways. Generally magazines will use 3 as ok and 4 synonymous with good (even if these may not be the words used in the key at the head of the review section), whereas to get 3 stars in a broadsheet newspaper is a good endorsement (they also include a "no stars" rating which magazines generally don't). Therefore I feel it is reasonable to expect to find the Guardian giving Sunshine a mark of 3 or even 2 next Friday whilst the three magazines I have already mentioned all gave it 4. I chose to give this movie the equivalent of a 4, because I am not judging its place in the history of world cinema but whether or not it is in my opinion a satisfying experience for a moviegoer right now. There's no need to get patronising with me.
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