Outside Context

Do you recog­nise the fol­low­ing quotes?

• “I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.”
• “This is Ripley, last sur­vivor of the Nos­tromo, sign­ing off.”
• “You know noth­ing. Hell is only a word. The real­ity is much, much worse.”
• “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”
• “So, what’s it like down there, in a submarine?”

If you know the films that these quotes are taken from, then accord­ing to many of the film review web­sites, and most of the threads in the com­ments sec­tions of film review web­sites, you have already seen “Sunshine”.

I dis­agree.

Moreover, if any more ama­teur sci­ent­ists get their knick­ers in a twist over the sup­posed sci­ence mis­takes in this film, I will scream.

Firstly, they com­plain, the sun is hot enough to melt them surely? Well, the film is about restart­ing the sun, thus it is not as hot as nor­mal. Duh. Then, they argue over why the sun needs restart­ing. It needs restart­ing because it has been bonked with a QBall. QBalls are one of those super strange things sci­ent­ists can’t explain in simple words, but have an unerr­ing habit of com­ing up with a simple and cool sound­ing name for. Like “Branes” or “Super String” or a “Quantum Leap”.

//Short digres­sion.

Listen people, a “Quantum leap” is the SMALLEST move­ment pos­sible. Not, I repeat, not the largest. Look it up!

//End digres­sion.

Basic­ally, if a QBall fell through our sun, it might have the effect seen in the film. It might not, but nev­er­the­less; lets just hope one doesn’t pop by to say hi.

Then the argu­ments get juicy. Wouldn’t it take more than the amount of mater­ial they used to restart the reac­tion inside the sun? No, it wouldn’t. Since the reac­tion is a run away sys­tem then with the right mater­ial you could start it with two inches of the stuff.

But sci­ence aside, what about the story and performances?

They are uni­formly bril­liant. The cast­ing is espe­cially good, with some of the act­ors that I have been fol­low­ing very closely for ages. Such tal­ent as Hiroy­uki San­ada, who was bril­liant in The Twi­light Samurai, and Michelle Yeoh, who always seems to look etern­ally young. In this film how­ever it is another; Chris Evans who stands out in his part as the fant­ast­ic­ally quick think­ing Mace. A well writ­ten part that adds a needed depth to his character.

What about the story? Well, I saw every single twist com­ing in time to wind up ‘Cesca by announ­cing them, but frankly they are handled with such aplomb here that I, and you, won’t care.

This is a stag­ger­ingly well made film, a film by a mas­ter who ticks every box with a sig­na­ture flour­ish that is a joy to behold. As for the look of the film, it is a rev­el­a­tion. Con­sider this, it only cost 40 mil­lion to make. 40! The exec­rable Die Another Day cost 142 mil­lion! Quite how they man­aged to cre­ate such visual splendor that hangs together so well with such a budget is simply mind boggling.

So, yes it is deriv­at­ive. How­ever, it is not so high on sci­entific hokum as most sug­gest. (Con­sider the ‘sci­ence’ in Die Another Day, again!) It has bril­liant dir­ect­ing, excel­lent act­ing and well paced sus­pense. It is a very good film.

//Spoiler WARNING

The end­ing. There has been much cri­ti­cism of the final moments of the film. I con­sider it to be try­ing to answer a ques­tion many people have had. Namely, what would it be like inside an area where space­time has gone up the ying yang? Like in a black hole? Would you still be alive and able to ‘see’ it? What would you ‘see’? Would it hurt? I per­son­ally like the answer found in Sunshine.

//Spoilers end

I liked the answer a lot.

9/10

Basho

Trailer: