The only thing more dazzling than the angry star throbbing at the centre of our dying solar system is the production design on Danny Boyle’s visually arresting sci-fi picture. Sunshine looks magnificent. Our first glimpse of Icarus II, the last hope of humanity, cowering behind its massive heat-reflecting shield, is breathtaking. With its eerie beauty and ambitious scale, this British production can match anything that Hollywood has churned out on a budget many times the size. It’s just a pity that the film sells out much of its initial potential and intelligent restraint with a final act that feels as if it was tacked on to appease a teenage audience.

The premise, scripted by Alex Garland in his third collaboration with Boyle, is gloriously improbable. The Sun is failing, and with it dies the future of Planet Earth. Our last chance is a bomb the weight of Manhattan Island, the payload that Icarus II is charged with delivering to our ailing sun. The hope is that the explosion will create “a star within a star”, providing humanity with a new lease of life. It helps if you don’t question the science too rigorously.

Crewing Icarus II are eight ethnically diverse scientists and astronauts. Cillian Murphy plays Capa, the physicist who designed the bomb. Murphy has matured into his striking looks — his icy blue gaze dominates a bone structure that, until recently, looked as if it had a few too many angles, an origami interpretation of a face. In Sunshine however, Murphy’s beauty is undeniable. He has the white-hot intensity of a young Peter O’Toole. Also impressive are the Australian actress Rose Byrne, as the compassionate, level-headed pilot, Cassie, and Chris Evans as the ship’s engineer, Mace.

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

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

But the starring role goes to the Sun itself: huge, ominous and indifferent. A change in the ship’s trajectory causes metal to groan and shriek as sunbeams blasts the vessel — the sound design is as atmospheric and rich as the production design. A sun-baked psychosis takes hold of some of the crew. The medical officer (Cliff Curtis) gazes out of the observation room, a goofy grin on his face, until his skin starts to peel in papery strips.

The Sun is all that is needed to inject enough jeopardy into this story to keep us on the edge of our seats — which is why it’s so disappointing that the story introduces an additional device that instantly shifts the tone from intelligent, adult drama to teen exploitation picture. It’s a cheap tension-creator that jars with the quality of the film-making that comes before. It’s the reason, ultimately, that this film is not the masterpiece that it could almost have been.

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