Let me skip the preamble about how great Boyle/Garland are, because most people who've seen "Sunshine" know this already. The cast/acting are top-notch, and the movie looks spectacular as if it cost a heck of a lot more to make than it actually did.
After the initial scenes where you meet the crew of the ship and learn their story/mission, the rest of the movie is so tense and gripping I've never really encountered anything like it. I may just be a sucker for the sci-fi/thriller genre, but the situation these people are in and the fates they're presented with (not only death, but the death of all mankind) are so oppressive the viewer can't help but experience some of the fear for themselves.
Fictional characters have often held the fate of mankind in their hands, but usually in unrealistic situations (i.e., some super-villain threatens to blow up planet Earth and a superhero must stop him). Sure, we can go back over statements and situations in the film that could be proved false or unrealistic, but anyone who isn't an astrophysicist will have an easy time believing every second.
The only issue I've got with "Sunshine" (spoiler) is how it ended with Captain Pinbacker sneaking aboard the Icarus II and attempting to sabotage the mission as he did with the Icarus I. I won't go through all my thoughts as to why it seemed unrealistic; it just seemed like a bit of a cop-out. As if, when Garland was writing it, he thought "Ok the crew have just experienced all of these tragedies, and are now on their way to complete the mission, but we've got to throw an even bigger and more intense tragedy in there to spice up the ending." I'll never be close to the greatness of Garland as a writer, and I won't claim to have any ideas as to how it should have ended. I will say I wished he'd have taken after Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous With Rama" where, after a vacant, ominous spaceship appears in our solar system, the story ends with the spaceship simply using the suns gravitational field to slingshot away toward an unknown destination... the story itself was good enough that it didn't require a super-villain assaulting the main characters to make for a suitable ending.
After the initial scenes where you meet the crew of the ship and learn their story/mission, the rest of the movie is so tense and gripping I've never really encountered anything like it. I may just be a sucker for the sci-fi/thriller genre, but the situation these people are in and the fates they're presented with (not only death, but the death of all mankind) are so oppressive the viewer can't help but experience some of the fear for themselves.
Fictional characters have often held the fate of mankind in their hands, but usually in unrealistic situations (i.e., some super-villain threatens to blow up planet Earth and a superhero must stop him). Sure, we can go back over statements and situations in the film that could be proved false or unrealistic, but anyone who isn't an astrophysicist will have an easy time believing every second.
The only issue I've got with "Sunshine" (spoiler) is how it ended with Captain Pinbacker sneaking aboard the Icarus II and attempting to sabotage the mission as he did with the Icarus I. I won't go through all my thoughts as to why it seemed unrealistic; it just seemed like a bit of a cop-out. As if, when Garland was writing it, he thought "Ok the crew have just experienced all of these tragedies, and are now on their way to complete the mission, but we've got to throw an even bigger and more intense tragedy in there to spice up the ending." I'll never be close to the greatness of Garland as a writer, and I won't claim to have any ideas as to how it should have ended. I will say I wished he'd have taken after Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous With Rama" where, after a vacant, ominous spaceship appears in our solar system, the story ends with the spaceship simply using the suns gravitational field to slingshot away toward an unknown destination... the story itself was good enough that it didn't require a super-villain assaulting the main characters to make for a suitable ending.