director danny boyle's latest film sunshine is quite a sensual feast: for the eye and the ear. yet boyle's vision of a suicide mission to re-ignite the sun with a thermonuclear device the size of manhattan lacks a certain amount of mysticism that i think he was trying to achieve. thus when we get to the penultimate conclusion outright comparisons to kubrick's masterpiece 2001: a space odyssey become obvious.

which is a shame since the first half of the film is a beautiful creation of the tedium the crew endures on a long space flight. the pace is languid, almost static, yet when we come to about a third the way thru the film the pace quickens to a conclusion that has at least this viewer scratching his head at the action onscreen for it so defies physics.

these are not outright condemnations, since even kubrick's film stretched believability to its limits. in boyle's film all i could think about was: wouldn't an unmanned rocket be more effective and efficient? if scientists can land a probe on an asteroid in the early 21st century, then certainly by the middle of the century sending a rocket to the sun should be not more complicated than elementary math.

these are the dangers of watching sci-fi movies: having the curtain of disbelief lifted during their narratives. even so, boyle's films, as i've written earlier, even when failures are 100 times more rewarding to watch then the best tripe screened at the local cinaplex. several set pieces are astonishingly beautiful. a few of the editing tricks reminded me of what william friedkan did in the exorcist. i do not want to give the movie away so go see sunshine, then think about the scene where father damian sees his dead mother.

i do think this is a good movie. a pretty damn good one. leaving the theater unsatisfied at the conclusion reminds that speculative fiction often leaves me unsatisfied. i do not mind a communion with the creator in sci-fi but do so carefully. i could also make an argument that boyle is being completely secular by the events unfolding onscreen. but i think it is meant to be religious in his vision of trying to re-ignite the sun. just that boyle's vision becomes muddy. perhaps it is because his gift at image-making is so large that he became giddy with his power. i don't know.

look at the clip below, which i find extremely moving, and see for yrself. then go see this film.