Sunshine at the Grand

Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, has made a frightening art-house thriller about a journey to the Sun to “re-ignite it” with a payload of nukes that weighs more than Manhattan.

It sounds a lot like The Core, about a journey to the center of the Earth to start the core spinning again. But Sunshine is to The Core as Signs is to Independence Day. Sunshine is thrilling, scary, and thoughtful and its characters quake at the significance of what they’re supposed to do.

Particularly good is the creepy sun-worshipping that at least one of the crew members develops. But when you’re a few million miles closer to the Sun, a light bath might be just the thing.

Sunshine doesn’t shortchange on spectacle and suspense, but it keeps it quietness and creepiness throughout. Perhaps it’s not too surprising that the director of a terrifying zombie movie can shoot this sci-fi film so that it lives on the same freaky edge as 28 Days Later.

The characters are pretty loosely drawn, but at the same they are not what you would expect. No one on the crew recklessly endangers the mission (for too long, at least). There’s no dumb love triangle on board the Icarus II. The black guy doesn’t die first. The computer doesn’t turn on them, a la 2001.

All in all, I really got sucked into this film.

Three out of four stars.