There aren’t many occasions when a background in solar physics comes in handy for a newspaper journalist. But when a hip British director makes a sci-fi blockbuster about a space mission to reignite the Sun’s dying heart, to save the chilling Earth, all the while claiming scientific accuracy, it is a gauntlet I pick up with gusto. My verdict? Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy.

Here’s some very roughly remembered dialogue. Astronaut 1: “We’re 55 million miles from Earth.” Astronaut 2: “So we’ve got 38 million to go.” You mean the Sun is 93 million miles away? Whoah!

What . . . hasn’t Nasa gone metric? Shouldn’t the film be using astronomical units (1AU equals the Earth-Sun distance)?

Don’t, like me, watch it as a pedant and wonder how the onboard gravity is generated. (Why else would the astronauts be walking, not floating?) The psychology of extended space travel is covered well, although we could have done with a space bonk (Nasa is confronting the issue of sex in space). Instead, marvel at Cillian Murphy’s beauty, some metaphysical silliness and Michelle Yeoh’s shorts. And don’t have nightmares – the Sun will burn for five billion years yet.

BACKGROUND

• Sunshine

• Full of bright ideas

• Sunshine on my mind

• Sex in space? Not in Sunshine

Byrne as hot as the sun

From a bit-part in Star Wars to the lead in a Danny Boyle space epic, Rose Byrne is on a stellar ride, says Kevin Maher

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