Well, I managed to catch Sunshine this evening.  Definately a flawed film.  Great tone, and very, very satisfying collection of visual motifs (the film has the best honey-soaked cinematography since The Fountain).  The big flaw however is that so much of the movie is in service of the plot (at the expense of character development or interesting dialogue).  And when the **SPOILER ALERT** film heads into slasher territory (a complaint also leveled at 28 Days Later, but not shared by me in that particular case) the film really falls apart. 

I cannot think of such a squandered 3rd act to a film in the last 10 years. 

Overall, I definitely am glad I caught the film, but I have to chalk it up as a fair disappointment as it did not meet expectations - only as stylistic eye candy - not as ‘hard’ sci-fi.  It does feel as if Boyle and Garland wanted to play in Solyaris or 2001: A Space Odyssey territory but ended up somewhere between Alien and Event Horizon, not bad per se, but could have been miles better with a script re-write or two.

***SPOILERS***

Well, I think it’s relaes in everywhere but North America actually helped my enjoyment of the film. With so many early reviews, all of them mostly bad, I had very low expectations for this film, so I walked out of it pleasantly surprised.

The cinematography was really sweet, very much like The Fountain I agree, but I have to say I very much enjoyed the 3rd act, because it was so unexpected. I thought I knew where this movie was going (the premise wasn’t exactly original, the whole dying earth scenerio appllied instead to the sun and man kind must fix it) but when it veered into Slasher territory I was so caught off guard and ended up enjoying it because it just went somewhere completely different.

But admittedly it was because of the severly low expectations that I enjoyed this film, and it didn’t hurt that it had a really good cast. I would give it a solid 3.5 stars out of 5, Ive seen much worse Sci Fi than that.

Speaking of SciFi, next on my plate is “A Woman in Winter” anyone seen this yet?

Nord

I caught the film back in mid August. There were very few reviews on the film back then and I went in without being influenced much by advance press(which is rare these days). I agree with Kurt : I’m too am glad I saw the film, and while it had a strong 1st half, the slasher ending was WAY over-the-top and baffling.

Too bad. I have yet to see the flik, being that I am in the US.
Hopefully I can be as forgiving as a was to Transformers or Harry
Potter. Perhaps I will go into the flik with the expectation to just
be entertained. Perhaps I can talk one of my friends in the paying.

It’s easy, go in expecting a crappy movie and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some excellent visuals. If you crave realism though you’re on your own.
Also expect the most unsafe spaceship in a long time: the computer will happily allow you to make life-threatening blunders without interfering or even warning you (which in this case means THE END OF HUMANITY!) , but when you try to rectify your mistakes or save someone it will kick in with overrides, safety measures, authorization queries etcetera.

You know:

Crewman: “Oh shit, I accidentally forgot to press this button (which MUST be pressed but is not automated for some reason) while changing course and now we’re doomed! Quick, someone hit the override”

Computer: “Sorry, that is not allowed, I need three people on the outside of the ship in different dangerous and unlogical locations, tap-dancing the override in morsecode before you can implement it”

The movie sort of lost me at that point… 

Ardvark - July 25, 2007, 4:06am

It’s easy, go in expecting a crappy movie and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some excellent visuals. If you crave realism though you’re on your own.

Thats what I’m gonna do.With all this talk of it being a slasher movie in space I’m going in expecting Jason X.Its gotta be better than that…right?!? 

Yea the movie is nit-pickable (something that folks are wont to do once a movie (any movie) has lost them at an emotional or entertainment level.  The austerity, overall tone (up until slash-time) and global cast make it very likeable, and very much worth watching.  I just expected greatness and got merely “very good”.

As a side note, Sunshine is probably a great stoner flick.  What with the huge fiery sun, unusual editing rhythm and the whole “Dust in the Wind” motif often repeated in the dialogue.

hey new guy here lol

yeah i saw this months ago(since i’m from the u.k and it was released here first)

the film was great at the start,the second act kind of went better but the third act was messed up it was like a totally diffirent film….

could have been done better but not a bad job…

**SPOILERS**

Absolutely agree with Kurt.  This was nearly a 5-star film until Freddy Krueger shows up for the last 35 minutes or so.  Why introduce a villain to a story that late in the game and completely change the entire tone, style and storyline of a film?  I don’t get it.

Still, great movie and definitely deserves a re-watch in the near future.

I haven’t gone out yet to re-watch Sunshine again (had to finish Potter Book 7 first) but when I saw it back in April the edit of it was so bad that was shown, I decided not to review it. Audio was dropping out and once the film got close to the end it suddenly was jumping around so much it felt more like I was watching a trailer than a final act. I’m really curious to see this newer theatrical cut. As for the twist, nothing more than a shrug for me really after seeing countless sci-fi films where a spaceship is discovered and “shock” there is a creature/alien/killer on the loose. Cinematography and realized visuals are well worth the price of admission to see this one. For some odd reason after seeing it, made me want to go back and watch Lifeforce.

Kurt Halfyard - July 25, 2007, 4:48pm

Yea the movie is nit-pickable (something that folks are wont to do once a movie (any movie) has lost them at an emotional or entertainment level.

You may call it nitpicking but if you make technical procedures such a large part of your movie, as this one clearly does, better try and make them somewhat plausible.

I was entertained, and even emotionally invested (laugh if you want) but this woke me up like a scratch in my favorite record. In one single moment I went from “cool!” to “Oh NOOO, is this where they’re going with this?”.

And I didn’t even mind the slasher bit at the end, I had more issues with the deliberately confusing images (up? down? focus?) used to tell about it. All this movie needed to get my undying love was a stupidity filter and a proper theological discussion with Pinbacker before he goes berserk again.