From British director Danny Boyle who set the whole slacker community on its ear with his film ‘Trainspotters’ and then did the same for whole zombie community with his film '28 days later’, now attempts to throw a wrench into the sci-fi genre with his new film ‘Sunshine’. For the most part he succeeds greatly in the completely engrossing story of a ships crew who is on a mission to save humanity and reignite our dying sun, but the film seems to lose its way in the end as ‘Sunshine’ becomes sort of stylized slasher flick.

As we have stated, fifty years into the future the sun is dying and as such the earth is dying as well. The best and brightest have gotten together and built a ship carrying a smart bomb that if all of the infinitesimal calculations work just right to perfection, it will reignite the sun for an infinite number of eons to come. It will take the crew of the Icarus II sixteen months to make the long journey to the sun to pull off this miraculous feat, and hopefully succeed where the first ship, the Icarus I, failed. We’re not quite sure why the first ship failed because once you get to a certain proximity near the sun, communications outside the ship become impossible.

The mission is traveling along swimmingly for Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada – coolest actor ever) and his crew despite the occasional flare up that happens when people are forced into this close proximity for long stretches of time, but what kind of movie would this be if our crew floated to the sun, reignited the big ball o' fire with no problem and then floated on home? Not one I’d want to see I tell you. As the Icarus II gets closer to it’s destination, it receives a distress beacon that is undeniable. It is from the first ship from seven years prior. Now begins the debate between members of the crew, do they take a detour to rescue the ship as most of the ships resources including

oxygen and water are self-regenerating, and there is a chance some of the crew could possibly be alive, or do they continue their current path. To crew engineer Mace (Chris Evans) the choice is an obvious one. All of the crew, including the members of the current mission, are expendable in deference to saving the human race. Ship psychologist Searle (Cliff Curtis – second coolest actor ever) does bring up the possibility that if the first ships payroll is intact, then that will give them two chances to reignite the sun. Captain Kaneda leaves the final decision up to the mission’s chief physicist, the man responsible for insuring the bombs detonation, Capa (Cillian Murphy). Capa’s decision will have a lasting impact on the lives of the crew and ultimately, the lives of humanity itself.

One thing you’ve gotta love about movies is that there is a mission full of the best and brightest minds that science has to offer to save humanity and most of the people on the ship are young, handsome and or beautiful, and in their twenties – just like on a real spaceship. Anyways, that casual observation aside, there is so much great stuff going in ‘Sunshine’ that just thinking about what I’ve seen makes me smile. The story of saving the dying planet, though done before in films like ‘The Core’, ‘Armageddon’, or ‘Solar Crisis’, albeit done poorly in those films, is executed in ‘Sunshine’ to perfection. Not for a moment is the magnitude or importance of this mission lost on the crew or the audience. The sets and atmosphere are simply flawless and do a great job immersing you into this world of the near future. I was recently complaining about the film ‘The Invisible’ that filmmakers didn’t take the time to explain any of the phenomena that was occurring in that relatively subpar film, but in this movie at they at least spoke in scientific terms that I may not have completely understood, but they made it seem like they understood what was going on, and that was good enough for me. Boyle also assembled a great cast for his film with the previously mentioned Curtis and Sanada, along with Michelle Yeoh and Rose Byrne who proved herself as an actress of note in the outstanding film ‘The Dead Girl’. Chris Evans stood out however as the no-nonsense Mace, and truth be told, though he will probably be cursed with being too good looking and never get his just due (it’s a curse for us Chris), Evans is a fine actor. Even in throwaway movie action films, like the somewhat underrated ‘Cellular’ he manages to rise above. Great movie this 'Sunshine'– Until the end.

I’m not going spoil anything here but the film certainly makes a sudden change of direction near the end which really didn’t match up well with what we had seen prior to that point, and I didn’t care for it to much. I’m thinking a filmmaker as talented and as clever as Danny Boyle working with screenwriter Alex Garland could have possibly found another, more satisfying way to add more roadblocks and conflict for our beleaguered poor astronauts, but that’s just my humble opinion.

Still, that fairly major complaint aside, this was one very good, well acted, well staged, well shot film that any fan of the Sci-Fi genre shouldn’t miss. Oh but it was just THIS close to being and all time great. THIS close…