Sunshine is a 2007 science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Alex Garland. The film follows a spaceship crew in the year 2057, played by an ensemble cast of Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong and Michelle Yeoh, who are tasked with reigniting Earth's dying sun. Fox Searchlight is distributing the film, which opened in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2007.
The film received 74% positive reviews out of 131 reviews at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Among the "Cream of the Crop" reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, 57% out of 28 reviews were positive. On another aggregator, Metacritic, Sunshine received an average score of 64 out of 100 based on 34 reviews.
Critically, the film was moderately well received in the UK However one critic found the last reels disappointing, suggesting the switch to 'slasher movie' mode might have been inserted to appease teenage audiences.
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars and said "The [actors] are effective by trying not to be too effective; they almost all play professional astronaut/scientists, and not action-movie heroes," and also that the film "is strongest when it focuses on the sheer enormity of the mission and its consequences."
The film's scientific content has been criticized by specialists with arguments often found contradicted by statements pertaining to the film. For example, the science periodical New Scientist claimed that the nuclear weapon used by the crew would be woefully inadequate to reignite the dying Sun (millions would be required). . The periodical found the film to be confusing and disappointing. Similarly, solar physicist Anjana Ahuja, a columnist for The Times, commented on the lack of source of artificial gravity onboard the spacecraft, claiming "Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy". Ahuja was, however, more positive about the psychological aspect of the film, joking that "the psychology of extended space travel is covered well, although we could have done with a space bonk".Wikipedia
