Monkey Review: Sunshine (2007)

"What bad decisions can we make? Let's throw it around the room."

After having look forward to this for months, and even throwing up a “Sunshine is Gonna Kick Ass” post here on the Monkey, I have three words I must get out: WHAT…THE…FU*K?!?!?!?!



Sunshine

Monkey Rating: 0 Opposable Thumbs Up (out of 5)

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

Will someone please bring back Danny Boyle? The Director who brought us Trainspotting and 28 Days Later? He’s apparently gone missing, if Sunshine is any indication.

After having look forward to this for months, and even throwing up a “Sunshine is Gonna Kick Ass” post here on the Monkey, I have three words I must get out: WHAT…THE…FU*K?!?!?!?!

So much promise. This movie had SO much promise. A fresh scientific idea, a strong director, a good lead actor. What could go wrong?

Uh, how about everything? If there's a recipe for ruining a great sci-fi premise, this film followed it – and then some.

The story begins with a concise plot summary narrated by Capa (Cillian Murphy), the physicist for the ship Icarus II. The vessel’s mission: to deliver and detonate a large bomb into the sun, thereby somehow kick-starting the big lug so we can all live happily ever after. Believe it or not, as silly as that premise sounds, it’s not the movie’s major flaw. Oh no, there are plenty of those.

We're then introduced to the crew: Searle, the ship’s psych officer who’s “crazier than the crew,” Corazon, the biologist who’s running the plant/oxygen garden on board, Kaneda, the Captain, Cassie, the pilot, Trey, the navigator, Mace, the engineer, and Harvey, the communications officer.

It’s a wholly unbelievable cast of unqualified scientists – a fact that gnaws at you throughout the film. Here’s a question: if this mission is the last hope for saving mankind, why would you send only one scientist from each field of study? Did the folks who planned this mission ever consider that if the communications officer kicks the bucket, the crew won’t be able to talk to anyone? Can anyone run the oxygen garden if Corazon chokes on a space pretzel? The worst example: Capa, the physicist, is the only crewmember who can detonate the bomb. That’s ridiculous. Hell, even Noah took two of each animal on the Ark.

I have an idea…how about a crew of about 70, with entire teams to manage each scientific discipline? Not enough space onboard? Then BUILD A BIGGER FREAKING SHIP. You’re not collecting rocks on the moon…you’re SAVING MANKIND. You’re going to want to do this right, aren’t you? Spend the entire space program’s budget and lay everyone off. They’ll be dead anyway if you don’t.

Also, it might help to send a crew that has a little more experience than the one in Sunshine. The average age of the team is about 30. How about some old timers who have done this before? Think they might come in handy? It seems like they took the cast from Big Brother XXIV and threw them onto the ship.

I’m sure youth was a factor when the crew is faced with a major decision about halfway through the film. You see, Icarus II is so named because there was once an Icarus I. As they approach the sun, they discover the original Icarus spacecraft, stuck in the Sun’s orbit for seven years, obviously having failed in its mission to jump start the sun.

This is the decision the crew must make: do we veer slightly off course to rendezvous with Icarus I, to see if anyone’s alive? Also, what if its bomb is still intact? Wouldn’t that give us another shot at re-igniting the sun if our payload failed?

At this point, a newborn baby in the front row, a senior citizen struggling to chew a kernel of popcorn, and mime right next to me all said in unison: “No way, dumbasses!”

I agreed. If I could have jumped into the movie and smacked every crew member I would have done it. Remember, since this team is saving the world, they must be the world’s very best scientists, right? Would such a collection of brilliant minds even consider this? Of course not.

But guess what happens?? These idiots actually choose to rendezvous with Icarus I. Why? Because “two bombs are better than one,” a theory proffered by the ship’s Psych officer. Are you fu*king kidding me? I’m a blogger, not a scientist, but even I know that you encounter tremendous risk to the original mission if you veer even slightly off course when you’re headed toward the sun. These are the world’s best scientists?

Sure enough, Trey, the navigator, changes the ship’s course – but forgets to recalibrate the heat shields (so important when flying toward the sun). Forgetting the fact that Trey might have cheated on his Icarus entrance exams, it might have helped if he had some help during this exercise. Instead, he performs the task all by himself, in the middle of the night, while everyone is asleep. I ask again, these are the world’s best scientists??

If all of this isn’t enough to make you ask for a refund, don’t worry – the worst is yet to come.

With limited oxygen supply due to a fire in the oxygen garden (don’t ask), the crew calculates that there is enough air for four people to complete the mission. But the computer, a cheap HAL 9000 knockoff, asserts that there are five people onboard. Confused, Capa heads to the sun observation deck, where he finds…a zombie! At least that’s what I think it was.

It was either a zombie or the still alive Captain from the original Icarus I, who somehow survived for seven years on limited food and water. Oh, and he has no skin. I guess the sun burned it off. In any event, it was hard to tell because any time the creature was onscreen, he was blurry and the camera started to shake. I’m guessing the F/X budget ran out right about then.

From there, the movie descends into a slasher film, the zombie chasing the remaining crew around the ship. I’m not joking. Even as I type this, I can’t believe it. But hey, at least you can’t blame the bad scientists for this development. How could they have been prepared for a skinless zombie trying to kill them? They don’t have that module in the flight simulator.

No, the person you can blame is Danny Boyle, for taking this premise and blowing it to hell. Maybe he got his movies confused. Maybe he was in the middle of this sci-fi epic and had a 28 Days Later flashback, so he accidentally threw a zombie in there. If that was the case, maybe he should have thrown in some Trainspotting as well. This mission’s already got a group of bad scientists and a zombie – how can a heroin-addicted Scottish stowaway do any harm?