Sunshine

The closest guy in the poster reminds me of Kevin Rose the creator of Digg fame but only in the poster.

Unfortunately Kelly did not turn off her mobile phone and received an SMS right when the movie started. Her phones beeps REALLY loudly three times ... twice, for each SMS. Then she proceeded to SMS the person back with her bright screen lighting visible to everyone behind her distracting them. As she was finishing her SMS she got ANOTHER SMS.

I was so embarrassed ... I couldn't focus on the movie. I tried holding my hand over the phone to shut it up, muffle the speaker but obviously I failed. I signed to Kelly to please shut her phone off so she did ... unfortunately it plays a REALLY LOUD piece of music while it's shutting down.

So basically she disturbed the theater 4 times with her mobile phone right at the beginning of the movie ... also causing me to miss some key information at the start.

I was embarrassed and pissed and it took me about 5 minutes to relax enough to start enjoying the movie again.

I had no idea what this movie about beyond looking at the poster. I half caught a preview on TV and I read no reviews. I went into it cold but it looked cool. It had a good scifi plot involving space travel and the Sun ... that's enough excuse for me to see it.

Right away I found it interesting although I doubted that the sun would reduce in energy as they say because according to scientists the sun will expand to a red-giant consuming Mercury, Venus and expand to Earth's current orbit but push Earth away boiling off it's water and atmosphere and that will eventually shrink to a white-dwarf. I got this info from Wikipedia.

Given that the sun was actually reducing in energy making Earth a frozen wasteland, I still doubt they would have the technology to restart it or supply enough fuel to make it brighter. And even if it worked, maybe they'd make it too hot and the Earth would suffer from too much heat.

This is supposed to be 50 years in the future so 2057 but the technology shown, as usual, was far too ambitious for 50 years from now. Maybe more like 250 years from now! Scifi is typically too optimistic so when we finally do reach the year in that movie or book, it's never anywhere near as sophisticated as depicted.

The movie 2001:A Space Odyssey predicted we would have a massive orbiting space station and a permanently manned moon-base by 2001 and that PanAm would evolve into a space agency. Well, they actually got that sort of right. Virgin has expanded into a space agency but then again, they've expanded into almost everything including books, comic books, health spas, credit cards, insurance, loans, digital tv, mobile phones, health clubs, stem cells, wedding venues, music festivals, games and gambling, cosmetic and jewelry, wine, music downloads, movies, games and so much more. Visit their home page to check it out.

The ship was named Icarus 2 which was version 2 of Icarus which was the first attempt but they lost contact. Apparently the second attempt is the last attempt because there is not enough material to make a third bomb so it's do or die.

Icarus is from Greek Mythology about a man who flew too close to the sun using artificial wings held together with wax. The wax melted and he fell to his death.

The ship has this giant mirror on the front to reflect the solar energy. I'd sure like to know how that works or if that is even possible. The sun is still going to heat up the shield.

Speaking of 2001:A Space Odyssey again, they copied yet another scene where two people have to spend a little time in space without a space suit. Space Odyssey has come the closest to depicting what actually happens when people are subjected to the vacuum of space but once again Hollywood feels like they have to exaggerate. The problem they emphasized most in the movie was the extreme cold. They did say to close your eyes and breath out slowly. Closing your eyes is a good idea but exhaling all the way is a better idea. Freezing to death is not a big problem and yet the guy who didn't make it gets frozen solid in about 30 seconds then hits something and shatters into tiny pieces then gets vaporized by the sun. Dust to Dust.

On their journey to the Sun they discover that the first Icarus ship has survived. It has been 7 years and they don't have enough oxygen unless much of the crew died. They decide to rendezvous with the first ship because two bombs are better than one. Course correction goes fine but human errors causes other problems.

The thing I liked most about the movie was the problem solving. The solution was always that someone had to die. Time and time again the crew found themselves in a situation where they were expendable. Kill one person and you save the human race. Luckily they didn't have to draw straws since the crew got picked off one by one by various events. This plot idea that someone must die to save millions was explored in an episode of Outer Limits when a girl hides aboard a rocket carrying medicine to a dying planet. Because of her added weight, they don't have enough fuel to slow down.

What I'm saying is that there is not much original in this film. It's ideas are borrowed from many other SciFi films. It even made me think about the really bad movie Solarbabies.

When they visited the original Icarus it reminded me of two movies: Event Horizon and 2010, the sequel to 2001 A Space Odyssey. In both of those movies they visit a ship which has been long lost but they seemed to mimic the horrors they found in Event Horizon. Apparently living that close the Sun for 7 years and surviving changed the Captain in some way. He's running around naked and his skin is all fried but he seems to be emitting some kind of radiation that prevents you from seeing him clearly. He's also insane ... or is he. Apparently he spoke to God who told him to take everyone to Heaven which meant stopping the mission.

The final 10 minutes of the movie are really cool but I won't ruin it for you. I've provided too many spoilers as it is. I liked the special effects and costumes.

If your wife is deaf, avoid inviting her to this. My wife fell asleep about 5 times. Some movies are just boring to the deaf ... too much talking, not enough action.