SUNSHINE

'''SUNSHINE. Danny Boyle, dir.''' Alex Garland, script. Mark Tildesley, prod. design. UK/USA: DNA Films, Ingenious Film Partners, Moving Picture Company, UK Film Council (Prod.) / 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures (UK and USA dist.), 2007. See IMDb for dist. details.

Inside the high-tech, very large spaceships Icarus I and Icarus II we see contained people, gardens and, in a sense, a ghost or monster. The ships are pushing very large nuclear bombs: their payload, to reignite our Sun and save the Earth. In a useful and admirably succinct Variety review, Derek Elley notes parallels with SOLARIS (2002), 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (film), and, most directly, Peter Hyams's 2010 (1984). Note the beautiful but clumsy gold spacesuits, suitable for work near the sun, and in some shots yielding a look like Robbie the Robot, or a bomb-disposal protection suit. Note also the overall massive but clean design of the 'Icarus II' — and its nuclear bomb "the size of Manhattan" — which Elley correctly associates with a "possible [SF] realism, in a movie kind of way, avoiding the grunge beloved of ’90s sci-fis."

Images: space suit Icarus II with Bomb

RDE 26/XII/15