Sunshine ****

It's Getting Hot In Here ...

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans

Danny Boyle, seemingly master of any genre (bar possibly romantic comedy, but I'd be willing to see him give it another bash), has done it again. His slowbuilding sci-fi borrows knowingly from the masters (2001, Event Horizon, the Alien trilogy, and appropriately, Solaris) but reinvents the genre with a fresh young international cast (the only American here is Fantastic Four's Chris Evans), cutting-edge direction and a great premise: that we are killing the very thing which supports life as we know it: the sun.

When we meet our protaganists, they have been living in the claustrophobic hold of a spaceship for a couple of years, and there are the usual inevitable tensions. In fact, the first hour or so plays out as an intense character study, looking particularly at the psychological impact of sharing close quarters: Big Brother set in space, if you will. The mission (to drop a nuclear bomb on the dying sun in an effort to reignite it) is almost secondary to the inter-character relationships: the attraction between Murphy's engineer Cappa, and Byrne's Cassie; the disagreements between the calm, pragmatic Cappa and the hot-headed Mace (Evans at his most shrewd and charismatic), and the cultural differences between the American and Chinese members of the crew. Garland's dialogue is tightest when exploring these relationships, and the performances are superb, particularly Cappa as the reluctant hero, Byrne as the troubled heroine, and Evans. At about the hour mark, this is a five-star film. Then comes the disappointment.

For some obscure, one might almost say alien reason, Boyle decided to go in for a genre shift. Suddenly the slow-building sci-fi was a fast-paced teen slasher. The tension breaks into chases, gore and explosions. And while this is still thrilling, it becomes too unrestrained to be fulfilling. It holds our interest, sure, and the entire thing is beautifully rendered, but you can't help thinking that a filmmaker of Boyle's talents, and a scriptwriter of Garland's, might have thought to tauten it all up a bit.

CONCLUSION: The genre-shift jolts a little, but from beginning to end this is a rollicking, thrilling ride. Not a classic, but hugely entertaining, it leaves a slightly bitter taste. It was on a path to be so much more.