| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
A |
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| Direction: |
B+ |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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A Sci-Fi Synonymous with Quality and Substance
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Jan 30, 2008
8
of
12 people found this review helpful
Cliched. This might be the first thing to cross you r mind when you watch the trailer (though it's likely you have not). The plot, settings and cast of Sunshine can easily lead anyone to believe that this is yet another bloated Sci-Fi movie with superfluous special effects and inane story-line churned out by movie producers on a regular basis.
However, Sunshine is much more than just an ordinary movie.
While it's still essentially a Sci-Fi, the movie explores a very different theme, a philosophical one, and it is guaranteed to blow your mind away. The Sun is depicted (intentionally) as something of a godly entity, the Creator, that is far more enormous and significant than the human mind can grasp. The empty space, on the other hand, is an empty, cool, dark and hostile place that extinguishes any life-form that comes into contact with the void. A strong contrast cleverly pictured.
Sunshine hops into the main story without any unnecessary introductory sequences (the spaceship launch, conditions on Earth, etc.). You will know that this movie is all about a mission to 're-ignite' the Sun right from the very first commentary. The vast majority of the movie is set on the spaceship (Icarus II) and space. It quickly draws you in with the explicit focus on the grandness and significance of the mission, the character development, and the fact that there is no second chance for the mission. This, along with the superb cast of actors (of multi-ethnic), pushes the story and emotion to its intense peak. Glorious sacrifices of characters (as you would expect) were pictured as more dramatic than any other movie you have watched. Every blink of the eye squanders its beauty.
Needless to say, the special effects are astonishing. Eye-catching enough to baffle you, yet elegant enough for your mind to take it. It never feels like the effects are too perplexing or overdone. The musics and sound effects were awesome as well. They got it just right.
Nevertheless, the movie has some obvious flaws as well. The inane third act is a terrible twist. There are moments when it completely deviates from the main theme. Clearly overdone. Not to mention, some of the scenes appear to defy the laws of physics. If you're a geek, these questions might pop out from your head - "Is it possible to maintain a constant accelerated reference frame throughout the journey?", "Wouldn't the gravity of the Sun cripples everything?", "5778 Kelvin is enough to melt any metal we know?", "I thought the Sun was expanding to become the Red Giant?", "WTF? How do you trigger a chain nuclear reaction at the core of the sun with such minute quantity of payload?" Well, it's still a science fiction anyway.
Despite all the defects, the movie still comes together pretty well. It redefines the standards of the Sci-Fi genre. Sci-Fi fans should never miss this. This is perhaps one of the most under-rated movies of the year.
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