Sunshine

I took a break from editing FRANK last night to sit down and watch Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, who's Boyle's go-to writer guy.

The short version: holy fucking shit, did I love this movie.

Slightly longer version: I was kicking myself the whole time for not seeing it in the theater. I dunno why... the title didn't grab me, I didn't get a big impression off the trailers, etc. Like many people - it didn't perform very well in the domestic box office - I stayed away.

Well... I was a fucking idiot. This movie blew me away. There are visuals here that're jaw-dropping. The sound design is beyond comparison.

However, lemme state this in big, bold letters: THIS IS NOT A MOVIE FOR EVERYBODY.

In fact... I wanna say this is as close to hard sci-fi as I've seen on the screen in a long time. It's Alien meets 2001 by way Asimov. This is the kinda big-story, soul-searing sci-fi I used to read when I was a kid. There's no concession to the general audience whatsoever: no kooky guy lessening the tension with one-liners, no robots, no Hollywood bullshit. Just a crew of scientists on a mission to shoot a bomb into the sun as a last-ditch way to keep it from dying so Earth won't freeze.

It opens to tension, and get crazier by degrees from there. There isn't an ounce of fat on this story, no wasted movements or dumb subplots.

The movie also does zero lifting in terms of telling you how to feel about the characters. Cillian Murphy turns out to be our main protagonist but, beyond his star status, I wasn't sure until act three. All I knew from the trailers that someone on the mission goes insane. By the time the story starts, these people have already been on this suicide mission for seven years, and all of them have cracks. So I had no idea if it was gonna be Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick or what...

That aspect strongly reminded me of the first time I saw Alien, when I was but a wee lad. Since all of the characters are normal-type people - by that, I mean it's not like Bruce Willis is on the Nostromo - I had no idea who was good or bad, who would die or survive. At the time, I thought it would be a standard action-tough guy thing with Dallas kicking ass. Wrong. (Spoiler).

I can't say this is a movie I'm gonna watch again in the near future. This ain't a comfort food movie like Big Lebowski or RoboCop. It's fucking intense.

I should also point out that this is the second movie of Boyle's, besides 28 Days Later, where I had multiple people warning me about the third act. Once again, I loved the third act. I dunno, I don't seem to mind where Boyle takes these stories as much as some people. In fact, the last act of 28 was my favorite part -- the first two acts were fun and scary but, 'cause I like zombie movies and watch a lot of them, I felt like I'd already seen that movie elsewhere. It didn't have any surprises for me until they got to that house. Most people hated that part of the movie, I thought it truly took off for me in the last act. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

It's strange that Danny Boyle doesn't get as much attention as some other directors out there. I think he's an amazing talent and, even if he's not shooting $100m summer popcorn movies, there'll come a day when he's "discovered" by the mainstream in a big way.