Sunshine

Fifty years in the future an astronaut team travels to the dying sun in the hopes of reigniting it.

Sunshine is —at least for the first two acts— brilliant. Director Danny Boyle delivers a smart, awe-inspiring science fiction film that has to be seen on a large screen with a great sound system to do it justice. The script does a great job of building the tension, while at the same time keeping the fantastic nature of the story grounded in a very plausible reality, while the actors all turn in great performances.

Unfortunately, the film completely falls apart in the third act, as it degenerates into a routine slasher film that undermines much of the dramatic impact of the mission itself. It’s almost as if screenwriter Alex Garland lost his nerve in the end and, instead of taking the movie somewhere new, retreated to familiar territory; a real disappointment given the film’s enormous potential.