IF THE SUN DIES, SO DO WE.
Sometime in the future, Earth is covered in ice and the spacecraft Icarus II is headed for the sun carrying a bomb the size of Manhattan meant to ignite a new star within the old one. Itās science fiction of the Solaris and 2001 kind, where the human psyche and courage are examined. What are we prepared to sacrifice to rescue mankind? And what is it we think we can see out there at the edge of everything, so close to the sun? The film was made on a small budget, but the visual effects are stunning. The third act turns into Alien, which is undeniably exciting even though the special effects threaten to swallow everything. Still, pieces of the puzzle are brilliant.
2007-U.S.-Britain. 107 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced byĀ Andrew Macdonald. Directed byĀ Danny Boyle. Screenplay: Alex Garland. Visual Effects: Tom Wood, and others. Cast: Cillian Murphy (Robert Capa), Chris Evans (Mace), Rose Byrne (Cassie), Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cliff Curtis… Mark Strong.
Last word: “The first thing I did was put [the actors] in a dormitory and they were really shocked. I think, because they were expecting to be put in a place like the Ritz Carlton or whatever the equivalent is in London. I said āNo, youāre going to be staying in a university dormitory by the canal in East London.ā And they accepted it because they want to please early on ā actors.Ā What it does is it bursts their bubble, when they arrive. I know this from working on a number of other projects. Basically, actors arrive in a bubble. They have a little sealed bubble around them and itās basically [comprised of] their agents, their last film, their next film, their press agent, and their per diemsā¦all these things, they cocoon themselves with and you have to puncture that bubble on each of them to make them be in your film.” (Boyle, Rotten Tomatoes)