What would you do if the sun were dying? Bring it back to life by detonating a stellar bomb on its surface, of course. That is what a crew of astronauts attempt to do in Sunshine, a 2007 sci-fi thriller streaming now on Prime Video and Apple TV.
Set in 2057, Sunshine follows the eight-person crew of the spaceship Icarus II, the last hope for saving life on Earth. These scientists are not stereotypically cold and calculating. They are smart human beings, but still subject to their emotions.
They are also played by some big-name actors. Cillian Murphy stars as the physicist Robert Capa (16 years before starring as another physicist named Robert in Oppenheimer). Marvel’s Captain America Chris Evans plays the hot-headed engineer Mace. Malaysian superstar and Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh is the ship’s biologist, Corazon.
When Icarus II detects the presence of the ship Icarus I — which had tried and failed to restart the sun seven years earlier — the crew decides to change course. They attempt to salvage the stellar bomb from the older ship, in case their own bomb fails. But the Icarus II’s navigator, Trey (Benedict Wong), makes a miscalculation that leads to a risky maintenance maneuver.
Donning bulky, bright gold spacesuits, Capa and Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) venture outside the ship to make repairs, and things soon turn grim. The Icarus II’s oxygen reserves are damaged, and Corazon calculates that only half of the crew members will have enough air to survive. And they have an even bigger problem when they finally reach the Icarus I.
A quiet terror haunts the second half of Sunshine. But there are also visually stunning shots, like those of the sun reflecting off the ship’s solar shield. Seen from the ice-covered earth, the sun is only a dim point of light, but as the Icarus II gets closer to the dying star, the crew experiences its full intensity.
The performances of the ensemble cast make Sunshine more than just another sci-fi thiller. Murphy adds gravitas to the role of Capa, the astronaut responsible for operating the stellar bomb. He is often at odds with Evans’s character Mace, and the two of them are not above settling their disagreements with their fists. Pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne) serves as a level-headed mediator, while second-in-command Harvey (Troy Garity) struggles to accept the possibility of death. The only character who is seemingly without fear is the psychologist Searle (Cliff Curtis), who risks damaging his retinas as he obsessively watches the sun.
While the premise of the sun’s death in the near future may be pure fantasy, Sunshine director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland collaborated with a physics professor to give the film scientific weight. Boyle also made the actors live together during preparation for their roles. The resulting world has depth, and the crew has a slightly-dysfunctional chemistry that rings true.
It is fascinating to see so much talent gathered in one movie, years before the most famous roles of some of these stars. Combined with a captivating, apocalyptic plot, Sunshine stands out as one of the best sci-fi films of the 2000s.
