Spoiler: Sunshine has a “happy” ending. End spoiler. I had to put that up front because Danny Boyle’s excellent 2007 sci-fi film is a layered downward emotional spiral with some solid performances throughout. The story pretty much sets up the fact that this is going to be terminally gloomy stuff (despite the positive sounding title): the crew of the Icarus II sets out from a suffering Earth to relight a dying Sun with a massive nuclear explosion seven years after the first mission fails. Yeah, that’s not your average blockbuster summer comedy hit storyline, that’s for damn sure…

As Icarus II gets closer to its target, it’s discovered that first Icarus didn’t actually disappear as much as become something of The Old Dark House in space (minus any comedic elements). When the new ship links up with the old in order to snag its bomb and it’s discover what happened to its crew, things get more than a little strange as a few shocking elements come into play…

I hate watching sci-fi films for the science they always mangle at some point during their running time (and Sunshine has some major issues with everything from gravity not functioning as it should, heat and cold effects and a list of other things if you’re picky about total accuracy (which, amusingly enough is virtually impossible to do in sci-fi given that the “fi” stands for FICTION, duh!). That said, the film works better as a sort of psychological tone poem on the busywork of space travel as it slowly turns into a horror movie with a ticking clock. The international cast is excellent overall, with Cillian Murphy leading the crew of the Icarus II and playing him as a dedicated but, like everyone else on the ship, a bit unraveled by the weight of the mission and the long period in space. Like the original and remake filmed versions of Stanisław Lem’s brilliant Solaris, Sunshine does a solid job of portraying the mental state of its astronauts as things go into assorted levels of hell during the mission.

Boyle’s direction is tight as he builds tension from the opening moments (or are streaming and poke around on YouTube on Fox Searchlight’s channel) and if you happen to grab this on disc, make sure to watch the special features and check out the making-of content for some surprising bits of info. Seeing that the cast lived together and did assorted pre-production training activities for a bit before filming to add more realism to their performances should make you appreciate what’s here even more. The science stuff is informative (and yes, more accurate than portrayed in the film) and overall, these bits add another layer of depth to the film that’s welcome. I prefer this sort of ensemble casting and planning a lot more than getting a of better-known scenery chewers to bounce line-reading bullets off of each others’ chests and the poor sets that have to suffer from booming egos slamming into them.

Granted, the mid-point genre switching thing might leave some wanting a more focused on the “can they pull this off?” angle a bit annoyed, especially when some characters meet their demises not from science gone wrong, but what amounts to the usual horror movie dumb move at the wrong time moments. In other words, it more or less turns into a cross between Event Horizon, Ten Little Indians and The Black Hole after that switch point (which is a pretty frightening triple combo if you ask me) That said, the film still works as a whole and is quite enjoyable from start to finish. It being so good also saves me the trouble of calling it “a bomb the mass of Manhattan” (the size of the ship’s nuclear payload) in this recommendation. I’m keeping this “review” as short as possible because I don’t want to give anything away. Well, other than the ending (oops), but that’s because I don’t want you easily depressed readers to shut off that DVD or Blu-Ray player before you make it to the ending.