Sunshine

Many contemporary directors cite Stanley Kubrick as a central inspiration for their work. Danny Boyle is among them. Whereas many directors fall into the trap of simply aping (anyone get the pun?...no?...sigh) Kubrick, Boyle proves that he truly gets the vision by simulating not Kubrick's technique, but his ambition. Boyle takes creative risks with every one of his films, tearing down stereotypes and genre expectations to defy audience expectations creating something brilliant and progressive. Also, like Kubrick, he doesn't settle on any one genre. His films can be found in every section of the video shop and I have yet to be disappointed by any of them.
With how far technology has come over the last thirty years, it's startling that the central plot elements of space films have remained essentially constant. The crew, the ship, the mission, the threat. Sunshine contains all of these and, while the homages to its genre predecessors (especially 2001) are visible, they are not blindingly obvious.
The movie starts in space. Unlike the messy end-of-the-world space films that crapped across screens in the late '90's and tried to develop characters on earth before sending them on their missions, we begin aboard a vividly imagined Icarus II. Its mission: to deliver a device to the sun, which is dying. The nuclear device will reignite the failing star, thus saving the human race. My first impression of the plot was that it is a bit farfetched, but once the movie pulls you in, you begin to be floored by the originality of the plot and the careful details that make it tick.
Tension is built quickly and after twenty minutes, Sunshine hits its stride and doesn't back off. The action continuously gains momentum and it becomes nearly impossible to look away. Cillian Murphy plays Kappa, the ship's physicist and he serves as the film's biggest name. He plays his role well, yet Sunshine is very much of an ensemble film. Whereas you know Bruce Willis is going to make it to the end of his space flick, a cast of relative unknowns means that they can die in any order at any time.
And what deaths...heroic, jaw-dropping, majestic deaths that beat having an alien pop out of the belly. The imagery is consistently gorgeous from start to finish. Boyle has a sharp eye for color and the extreme contrast between the muted blues and greens inside the ship with the reds, oranges, and yellows of the beautiful yet deadly sunlight are sublte and rich.
Like many of Boyle's films, this one takes a sharp turn for the surreal a bit past the halfway point.
SPOILER: After docking with the first ship, Icarus I, whose mission mysteriously failed, the film becomes a psychological battering ram. Capt. Pinbacker of the first mission surreptitiously boards the Icarus II while the crew explores the dusty remains of its forerunner (foreflyer?) and sets about sabatoging the mission as he did with his own. Driven mad by the mental torments of deep space, Pinbacker develops a god-complex and is determined to prevent the mission from succeeding, seeing himself as an agent of fate. Dawning on the audience is the thought of what he must have endured sharing a powered down spaceship with only the incinerated, crumbling remains of his crewmates as company.
After the inevitable self-sacrifice and success, we are shown for the first time life back on earth. It is a breathtaking view of a snow covered tundra with the Sydney opera house on the horizon and as the gray sky begins to brighten with the returning sunshine, the film ends with an effective return to normality.
It shows us that it is only through the efforts and sacrifice of those we take for granted that our planet endures at all.
Also worth mentioning is the beautiful score by Underworld which perfectly accentuates the film's mood as it transitions between light and dark.