Watched Danny Boyle's latest this evening, and it's well worth watching with a slight amount of reservation. Written by Alex Garland, who penned 28 Days Later, it is essentially their own personal 2001, though unfortunately Boyle is no Stanley Kubrick and Garland is no Sir Arthur C Clarke.
Sunshine is a very cinematic film, though - and no matter how big your plasma screen at home is, it will not come near to matching the sheer size and spectacle.
Unlike a Hollywood feature, and reminiscent of the aforementioned 2001, the film is slow to start; a pedestrian excercise in character development, setting the story... that gradually builds and builds, with some great set-pieces. It is the end which spoilt it for me; just like 2001, Sunshine falls into a pit of pretentiousness - whereas this worked in 2001, due to the genius of Kubrick, here it doesn't quite fit, along with the decison to have Cillian Murphy speak in an American accent. Why?
Boyle, Andrew MacDonald and Garland must be congratulated on producing a thoroughly decent high-concept sf experience, in the UK and (if the rumour is true) a ridicuously cheap amount of money ($40m) but if only the script was tightened up, and the pretentiousness toned down, for after all, what we have is pretty much a b-movie with bloody good effects.
1 comment:
I have to disagree with you about SUNSHINE being pretentious, Chris. Okay, so it's showy and arty towards the end, but I really liked the way its characters struggled with, and surrendered to, insanity (or something quite like it, and perhaps too easily predictable on a suicidal mission) during the suspenseful finale... The humans go barmy while the ship's computer stayed rational. That much, at least, makes it the flipide of Kubrick's 2001.
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