Review of Sunshine (2013) by Ryan T — 07 Jan 2013

Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland will always remind of the mind 90's and backpacker days. I first saw Trainspotting in the backpackers I lived at in Korea with a bunch of Brits I lived with. And I read The Beach soon after I had gotten back from 6 mos traveling in Asia. Since then I've continued to keep an eye on their work.

Sunshine is an obvious homage to Kubrick's 2001, at the very least in aesthetic design. From there it stays smart and on course, with no magic Hollywood escapes for a crew on what amounts for a suicide mission. One of the aspects that interested me was the Cillian Murphay character making a key decision (and major plot point) based on "doubling" unknowable odds. This reminded me of what someone was telling me about the book The Black Swan, which talks about the past not necessarially being a good indicator for future events, and the problems inherent in predictions. Interesting stuff, and makes me think that odds guessing is somewhat of a psychological trick we play on ourselves.

For Sunshine, these and other questions lend it a gravitas not found in many sci-fi thrillers, thought the effects and visuals are awesome as well.