Sunshine

Hope that guy is wearing sunscreen!

Wow. Netflix recommended this movie to me and though I had never heard of it before, I thought sure what the heck, I like science fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It sucked me in right from the beginning and kept me going until the end. Well, the last third of the movie could have been better, but the first two thirds were top rate.

The movie takes place in the future where the sun is about to burn out. Humanity launched a mission (Icarus I) to detonate a bomb on the sun in order to restart it. That mission failed and they launched a second mission (Icarus II) to do the same thing.

Straight up, space scares me. There is something about the darkness, the silence, the sterility and coldness of a spaceship that creeps me out. This movie, interestingly, makes light creepy. There are a lot of images of the blazing inferno that is the sun. It's the totalness, the completely engulfing feeling these images invoke which I find to be creepy.

The movie is not without its clichés. You have the "crew is expendable at the cost of the mission" choices, the "struggling to maintain sanity in an alien environment" dilemmas, and finally (and unfortunately) the "movie needs a physical antagonist" plot point. They are all done well though, with good pacing and good acting.

Last, but not least, I didn't feel like I had to suspend my disbelief much. I'm pretty demanding when it comes to that.

I highly recommend this movie to any sci-fi fans.