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[Jesus Carbomb]

3rd act is metal as fuck. Danny Boyle knew exactly what he was doing.

 

[lilraylewis]

Not trying to troll, but I thought this movie was just awful. Manufactured tension, characters behaving in senseless ways, an insultingly stupid villain tacked on for some reason. Just awful. Yet it's always on the under-the-rader/unappreciated-fils lists of movie buffs.

 

[wesleyshark]

3rd act is metal as fuck. Danny Boyle knew exactly what he was doing.

I quite enjoyed the 3rd act tone twist as well.

 

[Hazelhurst]

I remember seeing this in the theater and getting a sense of vertigo with the external spaceship shots.

 

[Big Nikus]

Not a fan of the third act but I still think the movie is incredible (I saw it last year).

 

[DECK'ARD]

Yeah it is. Sunshine was shaping up to be one of the very best movies of its kind. Then it went off the rails and switched genres. So much potential squandered by a dumb twist.

Same. Made you think just WHY did you do that.

Left me with the feeling of being a massive wasted opportunity, and that even if it's beautiful I don't hold it in that high-regard.

 

[gregor7777]

The ending of the movie really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I wonder if it's just that popular opinion and people jump on it

I thought it was super jarring and out of place, and was not surprised a lot of people felt the same way.

It's a great movie and I highly recommend it but the ending is definitely not what I expected.

 

[bsp]

People looking to Sunshine as a hard sci-fi doc on stellar physics are wandering around blind. It's an almost perfect vessel to show psychological factors and religious allegories. The third act ties it up wonderfully.

 

[swearing-circle]

Wow

Okay, I've felt the same way as a lot of the other posts in this thread, regarding the third act, but I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft and cosmic horror recently, and I had never considered Sunshine from that perspective

But now I got to see it again. Reading your comment and similar ones on the internet...that third act suddenly makes so much more sense in that context.

You should check out the video I posted a few posts above! It really puts a lot into perspective in regards to the religious/science symbolism the movie has.

 

[Randy Monk]

Great movie all the way through. Has a really great commentary track by technical advisor Brian Cox!

One of the best commentary tracks I've heard. I think I've watched the movie with the commentary track more often than the normal sound track.

 

[Agnostic]

One of my favorite space movies even with the horrible superhuman bullshit at the end.
I think it may be one of the handful of space movies that captures the isolation and feeling of being away from home for me. There is a loneliness that is comforting for some reason.

 

[Gattsu25]

It was all a masterstroke. The people that didn't expect the movie to take a warm runny shit down it's leg are the ones that went it blind.

 

[DECK'ARD]

People looking to Sunshine as a hard sci-fi doc on stellar physics are wandering around blind. It's an almost perfect vessel to show psychological factors and religious allegories. The third act ties it up wonderfully.

Alternatively you can think it was trotting along nicely and then threw shit to the wind.

 

[Replicant]

People looking to Sunshine as a hard sci-fi doc on stellar physics are wandering around blind. It's an almost perfect vessel to show psychological factors and religious allegories. The third act ties it up wonderfully.

I'm guessing this is why some people hate the 3rd act. I never saw it as anything but scifi/horror thriller and got exactly that.

 

[FunkyMunkey]

i agree OP, great fucking movie inside and out

haters gonna hate etc but this movie is beautiful

 

[Orbis Tabula]

Man, I should watch this again. I remember loving it. And not being nearly as turned off by the back end as a lot of people apparently are. Very enjoyable flick.

 

[BobLoblaw]

I think I've seen this movie 8 or 9 times. It never gets old. The soundtrack is sooo Danny Boylish. Love it. And I don't care what people say, but the last third of the movie is still pretty great.

 

[gabbo]

I remember seeing this at a screening where Danny Boyle did a QA afterwards and him being really surprised people didn't understand/go along with the tonal towards the end.
Still, i love the movie and it made me respect Chris Evans even more, because he just owns his scenes

 

[RiZ III]

One of my favorite movies. I thought the third act was fine. It was creepy and bizarre. It also has the best scene in the movie, the part when the ship tells cillian Murphy that there are more people on the ship than he thinks.

 

[New002]

The ending of the movie really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I wonder if it's just that popular opinion and people jump on it

Or maybe some people just think it sucks, like I did when I watched it...right when it came out. I immediately arrived at that conclusion, and yet I still LOVE the movie in spite of that terrible twist, which says something about the rest of the film. Great stuff.

 

[Cipherr]

The ending of the movie really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I wonder if it's just that popular opinion and people jump on it

Its really not. In remember when the film was much newer. And discussions about it on message boards showed multiple muuuuuultiple people sort of asking about the shift in tone and damn near genre at the back 3rd of the movie.

A lot of people genuinely dislike it man.

 

[Gattsu25]

Or maybe some people just think it sucks, like I did when I watched it...right when it came out. I immediately arrived at that conclusion, and yet I still LOVE the movie in spite of that terrible twist, which says something about the rest of the film. Great stuff.

Yeah, I saw this movie without reading a single review or hearing a single impression. My opinion hasn't changed much in the proceeding years. If anything, the first 2/3rds of the movie become more endearing to me which only makes the movie's descent into sloppiness only more disappointing. On top of everything I mentioned before, the editing also takes a severe hit. Like, the editing literally devolves into what I would expect from a early 2000s music video once they start walking on the other ship.


But hey, I'm sure if you went into the movie expecting it to be a trite slasher then you walked away satisfied.

 

[~Kinggi~]

Man this movie was a rollercoaster. I saw it on release. I was like, first half of it blown away. Great music, acting, story, everything was wonderful. Then it turned into a slasher flick and i was like....eh guys wtf cmon now mang, and then they semi redeemed with last 5 minutes. Overall a positive impression.

 

[JaggedSac]

2/3 of a good ass movie

This

 

[More_Badass]

Finally got around to rewatching this. With the knowledge of the third act, it's pretty clear that the movie was setting that up from scene one

The first scene after the title is the ship's psychologist rapturously admiring the sun, and then the next is him talking about how the light envelops and becomes you, complete with a light jab about sanity and that the rest of the crew should try it. And then another scene soon after shows another crew member being entranced by the sun. The sun is treated as this overwhelming force that can draw one to it like a siren song to witness its full brightness, can drive one insane with its light, that consumes their dreams ("the surface of the sun")

What happened with Pinbacker is exactly what happened with those crew members of the Icarus 2, what happened to Searle, driven to its cosmic horror conclusions.

 

[HammerOfThor]

Loved the movie, didn't realize it was 10 already :O

I should definitely rewatch it. I do remember liking some of that alt cuts better than the original tho. The ones with talk of God and stuff.

 

[Afa]

After Alien Covenant, yes, I need more smart space scientists

 

[Ashhong]

Finally got around to rewatching this. With the knowledge of the third act, it's pretty clear that the movie was setting that up from scene one

The first scene after the title is the ship's psychologist rapturously admiring the sun, and then the next is him talking about how the light envelops and becomes you, completely with a light jab about sanity and that the rest of the crew should try it. And then another scene soon after shows another crew member being entranced by the sun. The sun is treated as this overwhelming force that can draw one to it like a siren song to witness its full brightness, can drive one insane with its light, that consumes their dreams ("the surface of the sun")

What happened with Pinbacker is exactly what happened with those crew members of the Icarus 2, what happened to Searle, driven to its cosmic horror conclusions.

Yup. While I maybe woild have preferred an ending without Pinbacker, I've come to accept it and appreciate it.

One of the best things about this movie is that because of its relatively small scale, all of the special effects hold up imo. 10 years later and this could have been made yesterday. Beautiful, beautiful movie.

 

[wondermega]

Watched this movie last year, after hearing consistent gaf ranting about how great it is. Didn't really like it at all, but then I felt the same way about Arrival.

On a related note, this forum also encouraged me to check out Ex Machina, Moon, and Predestination, all of which I very much enjoyed, so there's that..

 

[pringles]

It's one of my favorite movies ever. Like the above poster, I grew to like the 3rd act a lot more on rewatches, and of course the finale is masterful.

It's also the only movie other than LOTR that I've watched with a commentary track more than once. Brian Cox talking about the movie science vs. real science is super interesting.