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Tell Others About This Page By Using This Button "SUNSHINE" (2007) (Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans) (R) Alcohol/ Drugs Blood/Gore Disrespectful/ Bad Attitude Frightening/ Tense Scenes Guns/ Weapons *None Heavy Extreme Heavy Heavy Imitative Behavior Jump Scenes Music (Scary/Tense) Music (Inappropriate) Profanity Minor Mild Extreme None Extreme Sex/ Nudity Smoking Tense Family Scenes Topics To Talk About Violence None None Minor Moderate Extreme QUICK TAKE: Sci-fi: A small crew must overcome tedium, growing tension, and unexpected complications as they travel from Earth with hopes of saving humankind by jump-starting the dying sun. PLOT: It's the near future and the sun is dying, thus meaning nuclear winter has enveloped Earth and is threatening the future of humankind. Following the failure of a similar mission seven years earlier, the crew of the Icarus II is now en route toward the sun with hopes of jump-starting its faulty fusion-based core, thanks to a device devised by physicist Capa (CILLIAN MURPHY). Even at a distance of 36 million miles, the ship is so close that it would burn up without the protection of its solar shields, a point not lost on psychologist Searle (CLIFF CURTIS) who's fixated on all things sun related. That is, when not having to deal with petty, testosterone based skirmishes among the crewmembers, such as between Capa and communications officer Harvey (TROY GARITY) or engineer Mace (CHRIS EVANS). Of course, that doesn't apply to pilot Cassie (ROSE BYRNE) or botanist Corazon (MICHELLE YEOH) the latter who cares for the ship's life-giving oxygen farm, while Captain Kaneda (HIROYUKI SANADA) is fixated on the failure of the first mission that was led by Captain Pinbacker (MARK STRONG). Kaneda gets the chance to explore that further when Harvey reports that they've picked up the distress signal from the long-lost Icarus I. After much discussion about whether to rendezvous with the ill-fated ship, navigator Trey (BENNY WONG) sets course for it. Yet, a miscalculation on his part leads to an unexpected disaster. From that point on, the captain and his crew must decide how to proceed, all while dealing with unexpected complications as well as their driving desire and need to accomplish their task, lest everyone back on Earth perish. WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT? If they're into sci-fi films or are fans of anyone in the cast or the director, they might be interested. WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: R For violent content and language. CAST AS ROLE MODELS: CILLIAN MURPHY plays the introspective physicist who must make the critical call of whether to rendezvous with the Icarus I to pick up its payload and thus potentially double their chances of succeeding. He clashes with both Harvey and Mace when things get tense. CHRIS EVANS plays the practical but bristly engineer who tries to keep the ship going, and is focused solely on making sure the mission is a success. He uses strong profanity. HIROYUKI SANADA plays the ship's captain who's concerned about the failure of first mission and how that might pertain to him and his crew. BENNY WONG plays the ship's navigator whose miscalculation has a major impact on the ship, its crew, and their mission. Tortured by guilt, he deals with that in his own way, and uses strong profanity. TROY GARITY plays the ship's communications officer who clashes with Capa, uses strong profanity, and eventually decides to put his own survival in front of the task at hand. ROSE BYRNE plays the ship's pilot who, like everyone else, must contend with what occurs. MICHELLE YEOH plays the ship's botanist who cares for its oxygen farm. CLIFF CURTIS plays the ship's psychologist who's obsessed with the sun and its effects on him and others. MARK STRONG plays the captain of the first mission who apparently went crazy and sabotaged it and his crew. CAST, CREW, & TECHNICAL INFO HOW OTHERS RATED THIS MOVIE Curious if this title is entertaining, any good, and/or has any artistic merit? Then read OUR TAKE of this film. (Note: The "Our Take" review of this title examines the film's artistic merits and does not take into account any of the possibly objectionable material listed below). OUR WORD TO PARENTS: The following is a brief summary of the content found in this R-rated sci-fi flick. Profanity consists of at least 17 "f" words, while other expletives and colorful phrases are used. Violence consists of people dying by various means (murder & accidents), while injuries are also present. Some of that has bloody and/or gory results (including the skin sliding off a burnt person's arm), and those scenes and various moments of peril might be unsettling and/or suspenseful for some viewers. Bad attitudes are present, as are thematic elements including that of suicide. If you're still concerned about the film and its appropriateness for yourself or anyone else in your home who may be interested in seeing it, we suggest that you take a closer look at our detailed listings for more specific information regarding the film's content. For those concerned with bright flashes of light on the screen, there's some of that late in the film, including some strobe-type effects. For those prone to visually induced motion sickness, some camera movement (including various fly-bys of the ship) might induce that reaction. ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE None, but there's talk of Trey being all doped up from anti-depressant medication. BLOOD/GORE A person states that the dust inside the Icarus I is most likely human skin (stating that's where most dust comes from). There's a partially scrambled and fuzzy video recording of an Icarus I crewmember rambling on about something, and the man appears to have serious burns all over his face (but that's hard to discern through the bad video quality). The crew finds the former crew sitting on a bench, fried to solid ash. The bodies are mostly seen in silhouette and a few brief glimpses, including one crumbling away from contact. A person without a spacesuit ends up floating off into space, suffocating, and having his skin freeze. We see what looks like blood burst out and then freeze into little pieces, as well as close-up views of his frozen skin and eyes. A man has frostbite after his skin is exposed to extreme cold. Mace finds a person who's committed suicide. There's blood all over them, the gashes in their arms, some on the wall, and a large pool on the floor by them. Capa's chest and clothing are bloody after he's sliced there, while he then has blood on his hand and some on a door/wall near him. We see repeated views of a badly burned, but alive man. A man is freezing cold after doing a repair completely submerged in icy-cold coolant. He then goes back in to do more and then tries to climb out, but is numb and his leg is stuck on something that's cut him there, resulting in lots of blood in the watery coolant. He then bleeds and/or freezes to death. The badly burned skin on a man's arm slides off as two people hold onto it. DISRESPECTFUL/BAD ATTITUDE Capa and Harvey get into a fight with lots of struggling until they're separated. Mace indicates that the Icarus I was sabotaged. As acting captain (and now only looking out for himself), Harvey demands that Capa remove the lone spacesuit so that he can be in it (for a brief, but potentially deadly outside flight from one ship to the other when there are four men and only one suit). Mace lays a guilt trip on Capa regarding him being solely responsible for all that's gone wrong. Capa then attacks Mace, with them struggling and banging each other hard into the walls, etc. A deranged man goes on a killing spree on the ship. FRIGHTENING SCENES Scenes listed under "Violence," "Blood/Gore" and "Jump Scenes" may be unsettling, suspenseful, or scary to younger viewers and/or those with low tolerance levels for such material. Capa has a nightmare where he's free-falling toward the sun. After the mission has been rerouted to rendezvous with the Icarus I, the crew hear distressing sounds of the ship's metal contracting. Moments later, alarms go off on Icarus II, indicating a solar shield issue. It turns out Trey re-calculated everything except for the shield angle, meaning part of the ship has been damage by the sun's burning rays. Accordingly, Kaneda and Capa go on a spacewalk to check for and repair any damage. During this, the ship's computer decides to take control (as dangerous solar rays are burning up other parts of the ship), and the humans scramble to override that as a return to their original course will put Kaneda and Capa in harm's way. After they realize the damage that's occurring, however, the crew decides to let the computer do its thing, with Kaneda and Capa racing to finish their work as the sun's fatally dangerous rays move closer to them. One of them is killed from that, while the other barely avoids the rays by "falling" over the edge of the ship and is thus protected by its shadow. The sun's powerful rays rip through part of the ship like a giant magnifying glass, burning up everything they touch. That includes the ship's oxygen farm (a large greenhouse type room), resulting in a fire there. The order is given to open the oxygen tanks inside there to create a flash-fire that will snuff out the rest, but that results in a big explosion and more fire before it works as intended. In several scenes, there's heavy and labored breathing inside a spacesuit, possibly affecting those who suffer from claustrophobia (as the suit is tight and the field of vision is severely limited through a narrow slot in the helmet). The crew is informed that there isn't enough oxygen left (after a fire and destruction of their oxygen garden) to reach the sun and deliver the payload. Corazon states that they need to lose two crewmembers for the rest to survive long enough. The Icarus II docks with the Icarus I where everything is dark, dusty, and seemingly void of life. During various scenes of the crew looking around, we see flash images of people, almost as if ghosts, but that turns out not to be the case (it's just a directorial touch that the characters don't see). The crew finds the former crew sitting on a bench, fried to solid ash. The bodies are mostly seen in silhouette and a few brief glimpses, including one crumbling away from contact. Just as that happens, there's a violent jolt aboard the Icarus I, with the crew learning that the docking between the two ships has been torn apart. With four of them, only one spacesuit, and the need for one to stay behind to open the docking door manually, the group prepares, with two of them wrapping themselves in insulation to try to withstand the minus 270-some degrees Celsius temperature they'll endure trying to float from one ship to the other (blasted outward by the pressure). They then start that action, with the blast propelling them toward the Icarus II. All three hit the ship hard, with one floating off into space (and eventually burning up when the sun's rays hit him -- seen from a distance), while the one in the spacesuit grabs the other and yanks him inside to safety. Needing to jettison one more body so that the mission can succeed with very limited oxygen, the remaining crewmembers vote on whether to kill one to get them down to the necessary limit. Mace then goes to do the deed, grabbing a mechanized scalpel, but when he finds the person, they've already committed suicide. There's blood all over them, the gashes in their arms, some on the wall, and a large pool on the floor by them. The computer indicates that there are 5 people onboard rather than 4 (after saying the crew will run out of oxygen 3 hours before reaching their destination). Capa encounters a survivor from the other ship, a crazed and burned man, initially seen in bright, silhouette-inducing light. That man then slices Capa across the chest with something sharp, leaving some blood. Capa then flees, with the man pursuing him, until both end up on either side of an airlock door. The lights start going out on the ship from a deranged man sabotaging the computer system. The crew then races to get everything back on line. A deranged and burned man comes after Cassie, resulting in some cat and mouse scenes, including her trying to stay quiet while hiding from him. He then smashes his arm through a window of sorts, with her repeatedly stabbing him there before fleeing. A man is freezing cold after doing a repair completely submerged in icy-cold coolant. He then goes back in to do more and then tries to climb out, but is numb and his leg is stuck on something that's cut him there, resulting in lots of blood in the watery coolant. He then bleeds and/or freezes to death. Capa opens an airlock, with the resultant loss of air and pressure into space causing a great deal of structural damage inside his area (all as he's strapped in and holding on to prevent being sucked out). Inside the payload structure, a crewmember encounters a deranged man who lifts him by the neck off the floor, and carries him over to the edge of a precipice. A woman then jumps on the man to try to stop him, with both her and the lifted man then dangling from the man's arm. His burned skin then slides off his arm, sending the two falling and sliding down the precipice. After the reaction is started, a massive fireball races toward a man, but stops just short of him (although this is likely symbolic on his part of experiencing the wonder of the reaction, because he'd otherwise easily be killed by it). GUNS/WEAPONS Mechanized scalpel/Other sharp objects: Used to wound or kill others. See "Violence" for details. IMITATIVE BEHAVIOR There's some muffled and hard to understand dialogue, so the following should be considered a minimum. Phrases: "I (know) I f*cked up," "F*ck you," "No sh*t," "I don't want you to say sh*t," "A hell of a diet," "I screwed up," "What the hell /was that/is going on?" and "We're screwed." JUMP SCENES As the crew searches the Icarus I, something suddenly falls with a loud crash. A deranged man suddenly stabs a woman in the back with a motorized scalpel (no blood). Inter-cut with a quiet scene, Mace suddenly pops up from some water/coolant. MUSIC (SCARY/TENSE) An extreme amount of ominous, suspenseful, and some heavily dramatic music plays in the film. MUSIC (INAPPROPRIATE) None. PROFANITY There's some muffled and hard to understand dialogue, so the following should be considered a minimum: At least 17 "f" words, 9 "s" words, 3 hells, 1 damn, 1 S.O.B., 5 uses of "Jesus," 3 each of "Jesus Christ," "My God" and "Oh God," and 2 uses of "Oh my God." SEX/NUDITY None. SMOKING None. TENSE FAMILY SCENES Capa sends what seems likely to be his farewell video back to his family on Earth. TOPICS TO TALK ABOUT How the sun works and how long it should do so. The notion of the good and/or needs of the many outweighing the same for the few. The origins of the ship's name. A photo of a flight crew shows various astronauts, including one holding a sign that reads "Hi moms" (possibly meaning he has two mothers). We hear that Trey is now considered a suicide risk over the guilt he feels for what's gone wrong on the mission. The crew is informed that there isn't enough oxygen left (after a fire and destruction of their oxygen garden) to reach the sun and deliver the payload. Corazon states that they need to lose two crewmembers for the rest to survive long enough. A person states that the dust inside the Icarus I is most likely human skin (stating that's where most dust comes from). VIOLENCE Capa and Harvey get into a fight with lots of struggling until they're separated. Mace sticks his hand down into freezing cold coolant to retrieve a dropped wrench, and the temperature causes him pain. The sun's powerful rays rip through part of the ship like a giant magnifying glass, burning up everything they touch. That includes the ship's oxygen farm (a large greenhouse type room), resulting in a fire there. The order is given to open the oxygen tanks inside there to create a flash-fire that will snuff out the rest, but that results in a big explosion and more fire before it works as intended. A spacewalker is killed when the sun's intense rays fry him. A planned blast sends several crewmembers flying through space toward the Icarus II. All three hit the ship hard, with one floating off into space (and freezing/suffocating to death before eventually burning up when the sun's rays hit him -- seen from a distance). A man has frostbite after his skin is exposed to extreme cold. Knowing he's doomed, a man sits in the sun observation room alongside previously burned up bodies, and then lets the sunshine in, causing him to burn up (our view of that is limited as blinding white light fills the screen). Needing to jettison one more body so that the mission can succeed with very limited oxygen, the remaining crewmembers vote on whether to kill one to get them down to the necessary limit. Mace then goes to do the deed, grabbing a mechanized scalpel, but when he finds the person, they've already committed suicide. There's blood all over them, the gashes in their arms, some on the wall, and a large pool on the floor by them. Mace lays a guilt trip on Capa regarding him being solely responsible for all that's gone wrong. Capa then attacks Mace, with them struggling and banging each other hard into the walls, etc. Capa encounters a survivor from the other ship, a crazed and burned man, initially seen in bright, silhouette-inducing light. That man then slices Capa across the chest with something sharp, leaving some blood. Capa then flees, with the man pursuing him, until both end up on either side of an airlock door. A deranged man suddenly stabs a woman in the back with a motorized scalpel (no blood). A deranged and burned man comes after Cassie, resulting in some cat and mouse scenes, including her trying to stay quiet while hiding from him. He then smashes his arm through a window of sorts, with her repeatedly stabbing him there before fleeing. A man is freezing cold after doing a repair completely submerged in icy-cold coolant. He then goes back in to do more and then tries to climb out, but is numb and his leg is stuck on something that's cut him there, resulting in lots of blood in the watery coolant. He then bleeds and/or freezes to death. A crewmember separates the payload from the ship, then floats over to, and holds onto it as it descends into the sun. As it does, he sees the rest of the ship catching on fire and then exploding from the intense heat. Inside the payload structure, a crewmember encounters a deranged man who lifts him by the neck off the floor, and carries him over to the edge of a precipice. A woman then jumps on the man to try to stop him, with both her and the lifted man then dangling from the man's arm. His burned skin then slides off his arm, sending the two falling and sliding down the precipice. After the reaction is started, a massive fireball races toward a man, but stops just short of him (although this is likely symbolic on his part of experiencing the wonder of the reaction, because he'd otherwise easily be killed by it). Reviewed July 13, 2007 / Posted July 27, 2007

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