” We should split up.”
” I’m not sure that’s such a good idea . . .”
“You’re probably right. We might get picked off one at a time by aliens.”

Sunshine is smart enough to recognize a cliché, but dumb enough to follow it anyway. The crew splits up, and let’s just say it really wasn’t a good idea.

Intellectual and philosophical science fiction films are rare for North American screens, since Hollywood genre fare is dominated by action and fantasy. So it’s a shame when high-minded productions like the UK export Sunshine contains plot holes big enough to drive spaceships through, and are bereft of true and original thoughts.

The premise: about 50 years from now, our sun is failing, and a small spaceship crew pilots a bomb to the surface of Sol to reignite it. This is puzzling since the sun’s death is not something we need worry about for billions of years. An explanation for the accelerated pace is officially provided on IMDb.com in the form of a Q-ball (a supersymmetric nucleus) having entered the sun. The flimsy conceit answers one question, but why is a human crew needed on this mission? Will one bomb (or two) even make a dent? Surely portraying “the last hope for Earth” doesn’t require so many contrivances.

We are introduced to the the crew in their video letters to Earth, in which they express how happy they’ll be to return home. (Oh, the fools.) The respectable ensemble cast members - including Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, and Michelle Yeoh - underplay their roles in a manner intended to evoke realism and tension, but one wishes they would liven up a little. When the characters do “act out” they bicker, fistfight, try to kill themselves, and run around the ship desperately trying to find one another, ideally alive. Since the characters are blank slates with no histories or distinct personalities, they have “expendable” written all over them.

Rating:

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Cliff Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Written by: Alex Garland

Their ship is the Icarus II, and the Icarus I is still out there, its presumed-dead crew unable to complete the mission for reasons unknown. Before boarding the Icarus I, the film seems to be heading in the direction of 2001 and Solaris quite consciously, setting up expectations for a conceptual-breakthrough ending. However, the climax is straight out of a B-grade slasher, without the otherworldly thrills of Alien or Event Horizon. As in a horror film, the characters make stupid decisions with deadly consequences. One might presume the integrated computer has gone into HAL mode, since it omits vital information about calculation errors, fires, and intruders, and eventually overrides commands.

Pinbacker (Mark Strong), the flesh-and-blood killer, has presumably lost his mind staring too long at the sun. He rambles about speaking to God and ascending to heaven in a meager attempt at a religion vs. science quandary. Religion is represented with as much complexity and sense as science, which is to say: hardly any. Stark-raving fundamentalism is a weak stand-in for theology.

It’s a good thing the gorgeous visuals and music smother the film. The exterior shots of the submarine-like spaceship and that big yellow star at the center of our solar system are refreshing and artful plays of light, born from the imagination of cinematographer Alwin Küchler. By contrast, The Icarus II’s interiors are cold and dim: understandable that they induce fevered thoughts in the passengers. The gold lame spacesuits are a little silly, but a minor offense. Combined with Underworld’s majestic score, the effects are hypnotic.

The film’s aesthetics are not matched by its intellect. There are no fully-developed themes and concepts, just a lot of inklings. One can read online the exhaustive pains director Danny Boyle took for accuracy and atmosphere - including physics research, method acting, and probing into science fiction cinema - but little of this is evident in the final product. Sunshine is simply a more pretentious, less fun version of 2003’s save-the-world disaster flick The Core.