Sunshine (2007) – Movie Review

So if you wake up one morning and it’s a particularly beautiful day, you’ll know we made it

In the year 2057, the Sun is weakened and the Earth is in a permanent winter. A group of astronauts are sent on a mission to deliver a bomb to reignite the dying star and save the human race.

Overall, I really liked Sunshine. It was a solid sci-fi movie that I’d never heard of before, but I’m definitely glad I found this gem. Most sci-fi films focus on the Moon, space travel or other planets, but what was cool about Sunshine was that it focused on the raw power of the Sun. Even in its weakened state in the future and the Icarus 2 crew still 30 million miles away from it, the Sun radiated unfathomable heat. I guess I never really thought about it, but without the Earth’s Ozone Layer, we’d be toast. The film did a great job portraying this power with stunning visuals and an epic soundtrack. 

The soundtrack, and the main song Adagio in D minor, was actually how I found out about this movie. It’s an amazing song, used in numerous car commercials and most recently, Wonder Woman 1984. But discovering that the song was originally composed for this movie, I knew I had to see it. What I didn’t know beforehand was how many actors I recognize from this film: Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Benedict Wong, Chris Evans, Mark Strong, Hiroyuki Sanada. I thought everyone performed their roles well, the standouts being Murphy and Evans.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the horror-aspect at the tail end of the film, although it was definitely something I didn’t expect. Some of the scenes were filmed weird and distorted to the point it looked like the movie was skipping due to a scratched disk. But the first three quarters of the film I thought were great.

Many people claim that Sunshine is an underrated film, and I would tend to agree. Being a sci-fi fan and having never heard of this movie before, it was better than I would have thought. Overall, I’d rate Sunshine 4/5 stars. I’m amazed it flew under my radar since it came out in 2007 given its originality, cast, score and amazing special effects. If you are a sci-fi fan like me who also has never heard of this movie, I’d definitely recommend giving it a watch. Sunshine is currently available on Hulu for streaming.