Sunshine

Screening provided by Netflix:

All the Freaks use it!

Synopsis:

 

A team of astronauts are sent to re-ignite the dying sun 50 years into the future.

 

Brian's Rating: B : I thought this was a pretty good movie. Certainly the best space based thriller I have seen since Event Horizon, and clearly better than EO. Still it does not hold a candle to Aliens, but then again, who would expect that?

I enjoyed the futuristic setting and overall story objective of trying to jump start the sun. I thought the space ship built with a huge sun shield was well conceived and cool looking. The concept of the plot was cool.

So why do all thriller need to incorporate plot holes? I just don't get it. Its to the point where they are just expected to some degree and I tend to be forgiving of them so long as the thriller aspect of the movie is not compromised. Sadly, in this film it is. One is used to forgiving the mysterious gravity that seems to exist because we can pass it off on some super technology that knows exactly how to generate gravity in one space, and then not in a space that is on the other side of an airlock. I always wonder why this very same technology could not be used to anchor things when the inevitable hull decompression thing happens. So some technology does the gravity... ok. But then when the ship is entirely shut down, it loses all plausibility.

Also, I don't want to spoil it, but the antagonist of the film just flat out does not make any sense. It bothered me to the point of being distracting. Its too bad also, because some of the scenes and shot in the movie are really cool. There is a scene where the resident botanist finds a live plant beginning to grow from the ashes. It thought this shot was cool as there was this little sprig of bright green on a very drab backdrop. It clearly symbolized hope.

The movie is a lot like Abyss. If you liked that one, you may like this one. It succeeded in being suspenseful. Its just too bad they could shore up some of the writing. I liked it lots and would give it an A if it wasn't for the plot discrepancies.