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Salopian 
"Four ever European"
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 Posted - 02/08/2007 : 09:34:10
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quote:
Originally posted by M0rkeleb
Besides, ridiculous premises come with the sci-fi territory.
I know, but this one is way too extreme. Aliens that we do not know about now could easily exist. The Sun/Solar System functioning in a completely different way to scientists' understanding just stretches things too far for me. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/23/2007 : 11:04:52
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quote:
Originally posted by R o � k G o 7 f
My early review: Miss Sunshine.
Here it is if you want to submit it. |
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Paddy C 
"Does not compute! Lame!"
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Posted - 03/09/2007 : 00:22:59
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Finally, this film is finished! Just booked tickets to see 'Sunshine' on the 26th. It's a special screening at the IFI in Dublin, Danny Boyle and Cillian Murphy are going to be there for a Q&A.. 
Anyone want to suggest a question for mr. boyle or mr. murphy!? |
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Paddy C
"Does not compute! Lame!"
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Posted - 03/29/2007 : 10:53:14
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Well, went to see this on Monday night, and it's definitely one to see on the big screen... looks and sounds brilliant, and a great sci-fi flick. Ok, the premise may be a little dopey, but the action is great, it never falls into cliche, and it manages to add enough originality to even possibly appeal to people who wouldn't normally watch sci-fi. (.. think of your impression of zombie movies before watching '28 Days Later'...)
Here's a review. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 04/03/2007 : 23:34:44
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| Caught a preview of this tonight, and unfortunately it was another disappointment, which is all I seem to be getting recently from my usually beloved genre films. I'm not going to go into huge negative details as I did with 300, because it really is no where near as bad as that movie and doesn't deserve spoiling, but I will say to all those slavering with excitement at the prospect of seeing it - be cautious. Alex Garland's screenplay, very much like his work on "28 Days Later", is inconsistent and totally drops the ball in the final act and the enormous plot holes come thick and fast to the point of being insulting to the audience. I like my sci-fi plots to be absolutely watertight as the audience already has a lot to accept (the whole premise of this one is a big pill to swallow in the first place), so when things start to unravel in the logic just for the sake of upping the drama or producing a cool effect it really grates. The cast are all good, some are underused, Boyle's direction is a bit showy, but always solid, and the effects and cinematography are absolutely first rate. A gorgeous looking film from first to last - it just left me feeling very short changed beyond the thrills and spills and frustrated that it could have been a work of genius if only they'd sat down beforehand and worked out a better plot before spending all that money. Most people will be blinded by the pretty pictures though to worry too much about that though. A bit like 300. |
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Paddy C
"Does not compute! Lame!"
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Posted - 04/04/2007 : 08:03:25
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There's a law of physics which states that your enjoyment of a movie is inversely proportional to your expectation of it, but also a function of the movie's quality. (This so-called 'Lucas Principle' gained notoriety after 'Star Wars - Episode I')  
My expectations of Sunshine were quite low, and I was pleasantly surprised.. with ambitious sci-fi like this, there's always a fair degree of suspension of disbelief involved.. I don't really understand why the premise of this one is so difficult to take on board, it's just the opposite of global warming after all, which makes a point in itself.. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 04/04/2007 : 09:54:42
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| That's why I always wait 'til everyone else has heaped shite on a movie, then I go see it expecting shite and am often pleasantly surprised. |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 01:40:22
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NO ACTUAL SPOILERS, BUT DEFINITELY SOME POINTS OF DISCUSSION FOLLOW:
Okay, I've just seen this ... back to back with The Last Mimzy, which was an interesting double bill since both bend the laws of physics and are predicated on well-meaning if woolly premises of treating the earth and each other more kindly.
Honestly I don't know who Mimzy is supposed to appeal to. I think it was Sal who mentioned earlier that the film would be over the heads of most 6/7-year old peers of the film's little girl star, and that most 10-year-olds indentifying with her older brother wouldn't be interested in the pov of a 6-year-old.
But the real problem is a script which buries the 'magic' that fuels its plot, forcing us to wade through the tedious set-up and development of a domestic story before it jumps up to enchant us. Presumably this is to get us to understand and care about the family, but since - apart from the fact that they're brighter than most film families - they live pretty ordinary lives and there's no dramatic tension to hook us, by the time we get to whatever charm and magicky sci-fi bits, we're pretty bored. Well, I was. It's not totally dire, but the whole thing is wrapped in a hand-knitted New Age blanket and the focus is all wrong. At first, the boy is given far more attention, making us believe he's the channel for the magic [I'm using that word as shorthand, 'cause I don't wanna give too much away]. So, when the reveal comes that it's the girl who's channeling the Mimzy we need to change our point of identification too fast and too late. Most of all, though, it's a film that depends on charm, and there's not much of that onscreen.
Sunshine, otoh, doesn't need charm - though it and some humour wouldn't have gone amiss - but it does need a decent script! Some of the actors, notably Cillian Murphy, try and try, bless 'em, to carry off some of stilted-est dialogue ever to grace a silver screen. The [to my mind, absurd] premise has been discussed above; absurd as it is, I could have bought into it if everything else had captivated me. I mean, Alien isn't exactly likely, but it knows how to drip tension into you and keep you involved with a storyline that develops, contrasting characters who behave instead of recite and who have relationships instead of incidents.
Actually, for a film dealing with prospects of cataclysm it's pretty light on actual drama - in fact, moment for moment there's the sniff of soap opera about it. It borrows techniques such as the bursts of irrational anger and over-reaction as an excuse for a punch-up, and the endless vacuity where there might be genunine emotional connection. A handful of people confined on a ship for a long time -- I mean to say, what a lovely blank canvas for a real story. But no, it all slips away like a handful of mercury, in favour of sfx.
There's a sidebar, for example, about one of the crew members who blames himself for stuff going wrong; to abort his suicidal tendancies he's been medicated. The other crew members
discuss whether - for the sake of the mission, and because they're running out of oxygen - they should kill him, and only one of the crew votes to save him. The whole discussion has only ersatz emotion because neither the characters nor we feel any connection to the man whose death they're discussing so pseudo-rationally, nor in fact to each other. If we knew that the crew member who's clinging on to her humanity had some closer connection with the bloke - and, no, it doesn't have to be sexual - I dunno maybe they were in the same kindergarten, maybe he saved her life in space school, maybe they're champion chess rivals - something, anything to up the ante on what should be a moment of real drama. But no, a man's life hangs in the balance while these people sit around a table and spout patronizing nonsense - and we couldn't care less.
And, believe me, the film needs real drama not mere incidents to fill in the time till the inevitable end. Because as a concept it's pretty linear. Once you state the devastating premise and propose a solution however unlikely - the journey can only have one or two wrinkles along the uneventful way. It's the journey inside the craft that will carry it through space - what happens between the people. That's why Alien succeeds and this one burns up in the lack of atmosphere.
True, there are some stunning screen images, but I, too, was disappointed in Boyle's direction, which I've admired in his early films. At least there's some wit in Shallow Grave. Sunshine is just so damned relentless and there's no sunblock factor high enough to give adequate protection.
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 02:51:54
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That's more than four words, BB.  What score did you give it? 
(I'm serious! What would you give it out of 10? No worries if you aren't the sort who likes to grade art with a number.  ) |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 10:14:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
That's more than four words, BB. What score did you give it?
(I'm serious! What would you give it out of 10? No worries if you aren't the sort who likes to grade art with a number. )
Welp, it loses bigtime for being pretentious, but I guess I'd have to give it about 4 - because some of the fx really are stunning, the photography is terrific, and Murphy is one of those actors I'm beginning to think can make a reading of the phone book sound good. [Contrast this intelligent portrayal of a physicist with his Kitten in Breakfast on Pluto and the 'good' brother in The Wind That Shakes The Barley.] At least he got some fat dosh from this not-so-sunny delight [a UK drinks reference, b4 u ask].
What's your score, Se�n
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 04/06/2007 10:14:54 |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 11:59:28
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
What's your score, Se�n
Ain't seen it. I seldom see movies at the cinema these days, it'll be DVD or nothing for this one at a guess. First it's gotta arrive at the cinemas in NZ, then the lag 'til the DVD is out, then another lag 'til it gets to the front of my netflix queue, so will be quite a few months at least. And by then a few thousand will have IMDb-scored it instead of the few hundred so far. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 20:22:03
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| I haven't seen it yet (will this weekend), so haven't read the recent posts above yet. Just came back into this thread because I have for ages meant to note the line that I find most annoying from the trailer. This is "... our nearest star. That star is dying." This is so irritating because there is no group of people that anyone would address in that way. Everyone would just refer to the Sun as "the Sun", regardless of whether they knew it to be a star. The line is thus for the audience's 'benefit', and that's one of my pet hates in films. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 21:29:53
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Nice summary Baffy - you're right on the money about the emotional involvement. For me the shameless lack of logic in a film is the killer though. I don't like sitting in a cinema and thinking "what the hell just happened then? That doesn't make any sense" and for no answers to be forthcoming because the screenwriter wasn't smart enough to paper over his plotholes.
The most annoying things (with very necessary spoiler protection): |
Edited by - demonic on 04/06/2007 21:30:20 |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 04/06/2007 : 21:30:54
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1. What the hell was all that fuss about freezing to death -minus 270 degrees outside is a moot point. As soon as you go enter space you'll obviously turn inside out from the pressure. No time to turn into a icicle to make that cool effect.
2. So it takes them years to get to the sun and much is said about the amount of time it'll take to get to the right place (and the remaining oxygen etc) the coordinates they need to be at to deliver the payload, and then all of that is totally forgotten! Following the Icarus 1 debacle the survivors do a bit of "nightmare on elm street" with Mr Crispy and at the first opportunity Capa disconnects and fires the bomb at the sun even though they are probably still hours away from their destination.
3. A bomb the size of Manhattan thrown into a fireball hotter than anything on earth and it takes four minutes to get back to a safe distance? How we laughed. Apart from when the four minutes to safety means absolutely nothing as no one is onboard when it disconnects.
4.The tagged-on dramatic catalyst - one Mr. Pinbacker - practically stolen from "Event Horizon", in a performance clearly so laughable without extreme handheld shake you never once see him properly on screen. And what exactly happens to him? Cassie has been hurt/mortally wounded/come over all airsick, although it's something of a mystery what she's doing there. He sneaks up like a ninja, the bomb spins about a lot, he seems to lose an arm and then sit down. Baffling.
5. Which leads to the point that on probably the last attempted mission to save the entire human race, only one of crew knows how to work the bomb. Well that's incredibly stupid. I also can't exactly remember why he needs to be on the bomb to ignite it - why couldn't he stay on the spaceship portion and fire it from there, rather than kill himself? Was he always going to go down with the bomb? Seems unlikely, but you only ever saw him test it from the explosive side. It kind of makes you wish the mission had failed, if the best scientists and astronauts they can send to save us are this lot, probably better that the human race is wiped out. But then there's always some good skiing to be done in Australia.
I tried not to go off on one, but BB got me started! It's a 5/10 for me, and that's for the very pretty visuals alone. |
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Airbolt
"teil mann, teil maschine"
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Posted - 04/08/2007 : 01:32:01
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SPOILER IN LAST PARA********************
Awww . It started out so well. A nice techno thriller like 2010 but with prettier actors.
I liked that the increasing power of China was recognised as being a factor in the future ( so why have a Japanese commander ? anyone with a grasp of history can see the flaw if China is funding the mission ) However ( as pointed out elsewhere ) the fifty year gap was ludicrous. We are struggling to replace shuttles and the Orbiting Space Station is held together with tape. Even given the ( very sudden ) change in the sun , i just can't believe that we produced this HUMUNGOUS space ship fifty years on.
It was very pretty throughout. Fantastic visual effects. Must have cost a fortune . I assume the majority of the budget was splashed on the CGI cos the remaining $7 was left on the plot.
SPOILER COMING UP****READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILER
if ever a film changed horses in mid-race it was this one ! It starts out as one sort of film then abruptly turns into a Freddie meets Aliens. Absolute Garbage. The plot holes were enormous too ( previously fully noted elsewhere ) . Why ? Why?
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