Subtitles: English for the hearing-impaired, English commentary
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras:
Deleted scenes, Code Red: The Making of 28 Weeks Later, The Infected, Getting Into the Action,
Audio commentary
Director:
Danny Boyle
(28 Days Later, The Beach, A Lifeless Ordinary, Millions, Shallow Grave, Slumdog Millionaire, Sunshine, Trainspotting, TV: Inspector Morse, Mr Wroe's Virgins)
Producers:
Andrew Macdonald
Screenplay:
Alex Garland
Music:
John Murphy and Underworld
Cast:
Capa: Cillian Murphy
Cassie: Rose Byrne
Corazon: Michelle Yeoh
Mace: Chris Evans
Captain Kaneda: Hiroyuki Sanada
Trey: Benedict Wong
Searle: Cliff Curtis
Harvey: Troy Garity
Voice of Icarus: Chipo Chung
Captain Pinbacker: Mark Strong
For me, the movies of Danny Boyle are hit and miss.
Of his films which I've seen,
Trainspotting
is easily the best with its clever dialogue, great acting from all concerned and brilliant soundtrack.
Shallow Grave was also a good piece of entertainment, but at the other end of the spectrum there's
the dreadful
A Life Less Ordinary
which just became 'life less' as a good start fell apart before too long, while
28 Days Later
suffered the same problem. The opening was spectacular, but as soon as Christopher Eccleston and the mad
army men turned up, it really went south.
Sunshine falls somewhere inbetween all of these.
As the film begins, there's a clever segue from the Fox Searchlight Pictures logo into the start of the film
and we meet the crew of the Icarus II settling down to dinner. They're 16 months into their voyage towards the
sun which, we learn, is dying. In 50 years time it will be no more, so the answer is to drop a bomb the size
of Manhattan island into it as that will 'kick start' the star that gives us life and get it up and running
again, theoretically at least.
However, you'll notice from the name of the ship that this isn't the first time anyone's tried to resolve
the problem. 7 years ago, the Icarus I, led by Captain Pinbacker (Mark Strong), stopped returning signals
home and given that there's only 3 years' worth of food on board, it's unlikely anyone will still be alive after
this point so off going the second mission and this is the Earth's last chance... so there you have it: even
if the sun doesn't get to the point where it's expanding to such a size that it envelops the Earth and the rest
of the universe some time in the future, we're still buggered by external forces so the politicians can stuff
their 'green taxes' where they hide their manifestos as Mother Nature's got us beat.
No-one knows what happened to Icarus I, but shortly after the crew lose the ability to transmit messages
home and are about to slingshot around Mercury, they pick up the ship's distress beacon, but with it being
10-15,000 miles from them, can they make a stop-off on the way?
Sunshine has an intriguing prospect from the start, and there's always a suspicion that something will
go wrong otherwise there'd be no point making a film about it, but while it's great for the first two-thirds,
it really falls apart for reasons I don't want to go into as that would spoil it, but I can confirm that it
all starts to go wrong once they've discovered the truth about the failure of the first Icarus mission and it
seems that Danny Boyle was just trying to be weird for the sake of it. What a great shame. It's like
he got bored and took it down the
Event Horizon
route, but not in any way as inventive.
The cast of dysfunctional crew members works together well but none of them really stand out, apart from the
fact that
28 Weeks Later's Rose Byrne is still cute,
and I remember Cillian Murphy from
28 Days Later
and I remember Michelle Yeoh from the dreadful
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but no-one feels
like they're really putting themselves out here.
The Voice of the Icarus II comes from actress Chipo Chung, who sci-fi TV viewers would know as appearing
alongside Derek Jacobi in the Doctor Who episode from the 2007 series, Utopia, as his servant
Chantho, who kept adding 'tho' before everything she said.
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 theatrical ratio and is anamorphic with no problems whatsoever,
the spaceship looking nicely desolate as does the sun look bright and golden, with great firey SFX as
appropriate.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 output is great as well, with wonderful sound effects as the angle of the shield is
changed in a 'pivotal' moment (pun not intended) and the metal contracts and expands, not to mention for a
number of scenes that I can't detail here for fear of spoiling it. There are a fair few overly quiet scenes
in the film, but the soundtrack packs a punch when required.
The extras are as follows:
Deleted scenes (19:01):
With optional director commentary, there are seven, all in letterbox format. Some are alternate versions
of what we've already seen and included is an alternate ending - albeit not much different.
I'd include scene 5, Rough Docking Procedure, in the final cut as one first look during the film I
just thought we were watching some extraneous fancy CGI that was getting a bit tiresome after a while and
not making a lot of sense - that was until it got to the reason for all of it happening. This alternate
scene gives some background to all of that.
Web Production Diaries (39:04):
23 short off-the-cuff diaries with various cast and crew members, recording at the time of making the film.
Short Films (12:50):
Two unrelated short films that Danny Boyle wanted to put on the disc, Dad's Dead and Mole Hills,
the first of which gives mention to '80s pop-star Limahl and his spiky hair, but then shows a picture of
his Kajagoogoo band-mate Nick Beggs. Neither of the films are much cop.
Trailers:
A Theatrical Teaser (1:53) and Theatrical Trailer (2:08), both in letterbox 2.35:1, although
they're roughly the same length. Don't watch these before you see the film as they includes key moments from
the film, one of which is the very ending!
Audio commenties: One from director Danny Boyle, and the other from Dr Brian Cox - no, not the actor,
but a boffin from the University of Manchester.
The DVD menus are static and mostly silent, but the main one has an annoying piece of music from the film that
only runs for a few seconds and then just repeats itself ad infinitum. Subtitles come in English and there are
only 20 chapters for the 103- minute running time, so a few extra would've been nice.
Stupidly, however, this disc starts with a trailer for 24 Season 5... which came out last year, and it's
also stupid because the Special Features section is for trailers, not the start of a disc that makes it look
like a low-rent video rental title. Trailers also follow for Prison Break Season 2, Pathfinder and...
a Maltesers ad! Oh, then another trailer, for 28 Weeks
Later which also stars this film's Rose Byrne. Oh, and then one more trailer - Day Watch, which
does look superb, though.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
DVD: 
For me, the movies of Danny Boyle are hit and miss.
As the film begins, there's a clever segue from the Fox Searchlight Pictures logo into the start of the film
and we meet the crew of the Icarus II settling down to dinner. They're 16 months into their voyage towards the
sun which, we learn, is dying. In 50 years time it will be no more, so the answer is to drop a bomb the size
of Manhattan island into it as that will 'kick start' the star that gives us life and get it up and running
again, theoretically at least.
Sunshine has an intriguing prospect from the start, and there's always a suspicion that something will
go wrong otherwise there'd be no point making a film about it, but while it's great for the first two-thirds,
it really falls apart for reasons I don't want to go into as that would spoil it, but I can confirm that it
all starts to go wrong once they've discovered the truth about the failure of the first Icarus mission and it
seems that Danny Boyle was just trying to be weird for the sake of it. What a great shame. It's like
he got bored and took it down the
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 theatrical ratio and is anamorphic with no problems whatsoever,
the spaceship looking nicely desolate as does the sun look bright and golden, with great firey SFX as
appropriate.