So, it's been a busy week, and I'm finally catching up to John.
Just saw "Sunshine." It's a film that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's being played in the media as the new intellectual science fiction, this generation's 2001 or Solaris.
That, it is not.
In case you haven't heard it yet, the premise is this -- 50 years forward, the sun is dying. A team goes with a new fission chamber to restart things (according to IMDB's trivia, it's not, but according to the lines Cillian Murphy's character says, it is). And, lo and behold, something gets their attention and things start to go wrong.
The problem with the movie is, every time it starts to pursue a new path, it abandons it just as quickly. As Cillian Murphy is to Boyle what Bruce Campbell is to Sam Raimi, we know he should be the focus. But there are just too many happy shiny characters the he, and Alex Garland, the writer of this and "28 Days Later," get lost. There's the Mother Goddess in Michelle Yeoh, the young "top gun" in Chris Evans, the "strong little girl" in Rose Byrne, the"crazy shrink" in Cliff Curtis, and on and on. So none of them get their due, except Murphy's Capa.
The biggest problem --- their is no real mysticism! 2001 was awesome because of HAL, Solaris because of the planet. Hell, "Event Horizon," underrated as it is, had mysticism, even if it was evil.
This is not "28 Days Later," and this is not "2001." Maybe a Netflix, but way down the list. I don't regret seeing it, if only for the gold-sequined spacesuit (yeah, for real). But you can wait.
Next up -- "The Host."
Addendum:
I have decided to listen to Danny Boyle's NY Times audio interview, as I type. He speaks as aiming at a lofty goal. Too bad he missed. Which is worse, a "bad" movie that never tries to be good, or a mediocre movie that was trying to be so much more. I mean, "Dawn of the Dead" I own -- "Sunshine" I will not.
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