Sunshine: When Genre Mixing Hampers Potential Greatness

Danny Boyle's Sunshine is an audiovisual feast for the ages, yet its foray into horror in its third act hampers its overall quality, and here's why.

A poster for Sunshine from 2007. Photo: Searchlight Pictures

Sunshine is probably Danny Boyle's most frustrating and unique work. His filmography is impressive, considering the notable films he has worked on, including the Trainspotting duology and Shallow Grave, which are iconic Scottish films. 28 Days Later reinvigorated the zombie genre of film, while Slumdog Millionaire won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additionally, he has adapted a real-life event in 127 Hours, and recently directed the strange yet fascinating 28 Years Later, among other notable films. Then there's Sunshine. It received positive reviews, yet failed to recoup its $40 million budget at the box office. What remains is a film that is incredibly competent in many areas, but also disappoints in areas it shouldn't have even felt the need to try to disappoint in. Nothing better sums up that disappointment than the fact that this film is creepier, scarier, and more tense when it isn't leaning into full-out horror than when it becomes a full-out horror/slasher film.

Sunshine's premise is quite straightforward: it is the year 2057, and the Sun is dying. A team of astronauts is dispatched on a mission aboard the Icarus II to reignite the Sun using a stellar bomb, representing humanity's last hope.

Firstly, Sunshine's ensemble cast is incredible. Featuring the likes of future Oscar winners Cillian Murphy and Michelle Yeoh, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Hiroyuki Sanda and Mark Strong, among others, this ensemble cast is fantastically assembled, and every actor is doing a good job. It's fascinating to see Chris Evans in roles before and after his stints as Captain America in the MCU, as his acting becomes more fascinating and unique, likely in part due to the more varied films he appears in. Cillian Murphy reuniting with Danny Boyle five years after 28 Days Later as a silent outsider is entertaining and wouldn't be the only time in his career where he plays a character that is heavily involved in a very important bomb that will impact mankind (although Oppenheimer didn't make Cillian Murphy change his views on religion from agnosticism to atheism).

The technical aspects of this film are, put simply, incredible. The visuals on a $40 million budget are stupendous. Some of the stills and shots in this film, particularly those of characters gazing at the sun, are beautiful. The same goes for the score, composed by the excellent John Murphy. 'Adagio In D Minor' might be his finest and most iconic composition, equal to 'In The House - In a Heartbeat' from his work on 28 Days Later, and the use of the former composition in this film is note-perfect. The distress beacon of the Icarus I is simple yet effectively haunting, especially considering the film's context. As mentioned earlier, this film works well as a psychological thriller, with the sense of claustrophobia intensified by the fact that Earth is deliberately absent for most of the runtime. Boyle avoided filming Icarus II from the outside, apart from a few exterior shots of the ship, to sustain an atmosphere of confinement. These elements all work together, and if they had been maintained throughout the entire film, Sunshine would have been something quite special.

Being a sci-fi film set in space, Sunshine takes inspiration from a fair few films. Boyle cited influences from the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Ridley Scott's Alien. Sunshine also draws influence from other science fiction films, such as Silent Running, Dark Star, and Event Horizon. The latter one is probably the closest comparison to Sunshine in terms of quality, and also in terms of the mess both films find themselves in with their final acts.

It's incredibly easy to compare Sunshine and Event Horizon. Both are sci-fi horror films set in space that try to avoid borrowing too heavily from Alien; both feature some haunting moments, and both ultimately capitulate in their third acts. With Event Horizon, the third act and climax feel very rushed once Laurence Fishburne's captain decides it's time to leave, but that can be attributed to heavy studio interference during the film's post-production. In contrast, Sunshine doesn't have any stories out there of the studio interfering with the vision of Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland. They just ended up with a noteworthy third act for all the wrong reasons.

Whilst it's fairly easy to narrow down why the third act of Sunshine doesn't work, there's a lot more to unpack here. It's not as if the shift in tone is completely unjustified; there's enough foreshadowing set up and hinted at in the previous two acts that lead into the more horror-focused third act. In hindsight, ditching Mark Strong's Pinbacker, the sole survivor of Icarus I, entirely and focusing on the mental and psychological breakdown of the crew of the Icarus II, the closer they get to the Sun, could've panned out better. Instead, the film opts to become a slasher film for its final act, whilst introducing some truly choppy editing. It's unique for sure, and Danny Boyle is no stranger to his films having odd editing choices, intentional or not, but it doesn't make for a more enjoyable viewing experience. Even if the film had to lean more into horror for its third act, more effort should have been made to make it more easily visible, rather than comparable to taking acid. The flared vision and obscuring of Pinbacker make for frustrating viewing, regardless of whether it makes sense within the story.

In the end, Sunshine stumbles over the finish line like a drunk dad running a marathon, but the preceding events before its car crash of a third act are pretty close to incredible, and on par with some of Danny Boyle's finest work. The cast is great, the visuals are stunning, and the music is poignant. It's another good film in Danny Boyle's filmography, but given how impeccable some of its finest aspects are, it could've, and arguably should've been better.