Film

One problem “philosophical” science-fiction films (Solaris, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Event Horizon, Supernova) regularly run into is the ending. Once you turn space travel into a metaphor for the exploration of human consciousness or whatever, journey’s end is likely to be trippy and profound (2001) or trippy and stupid (Supernova), depending on how much your audience still buys into the metaphor. Sunshine borrows heavily from these films, and like them it’s visually rich but has some problems.

In 2057, the sun is dying, and one ship sent to reignite it with superbombs has disappeared already. A second mission has been launched to send a bomb into the heart of the sun, but the crew’s onboard shrink (Curtis) becomes obsessed with staring into the sun, the ship’s engineer (Evans) is a macho jerk and the physicist who designed the bomb (Murphy) has been thrust into a position of power he doesn’t want. Then they intercept a signal from that lost first ship, and things start to go bad.

Sunshine gets weirder with every new plot twist. The ending is not just philosophically muddled but dramatically unsatisfying. Science fiction can be exciting or profound, and even sometimes both, but Sunshine falls short on both counts.