This week I finally got around to watching Sunshine:
Unfortunately, the fact that it starred Cillian Murphy, who I kind of adore, was just not enough to carry this weak-a** film. I kept waiting for something to happen…and it never did. There was foreshadowing and random spookyness, and while I was waiting for an explanation, the ‘plot’ wandered on oblivious culminating in a crazy guy showing up and everyone dying. Questions were left unanswered and potential unrealized. Though he agrees with me that the movie wasn’t very good, Briggs has asked me what I wanted them to explain–there was a crazy guy and he showed up and made everyone die. Period. So I suppose that my problem is that I just have trouble believing that the plot was THAT depthless. Seriously. Lots of flash and no heat.
<–”I’m a physicist, not a doctor! I can’t save this film!”
<–Murphy in 28 Days Later, being awesome
<–Murphy in Batman Begins being awesomeER
Oh wow! I just discovered that this movie was actually nominated for a number of awards! How is that even possible? Seriously, this movie wasn’t even of the ‘I know this isn’t good cinema but it’s fun scifi and I enjoy it anyway’ genre. It was of the ‘Huh.’ genre. Oh well…people watch American Idol, so I know there’s no accounting for taste…
The other scifi offering I have this week, however, was of the AWESOME. The new director’s cut of Dark City.
<–AWESOME.
The biggest and most noticable change is that the Keifer Sutherland voiceover that basically explains the whole plot from the get-go was cut. There were also some other changes and rearrangings, and it all adds up to making the movie a lot more engaging and suspenseful — you don’t know why this dude is in a bathtub with a dead hooker in his room any more than he does, and you don’t know who the Strangers are until he meets them. You learn things as he does. Also, a lot of scenes are re-cut so that most of the movie is from Murdoch’s perspective…there are one or two places where he is not present, but the overall feel becomes a lot more first-person than third-person. I really liked the original, so it’s not as though I was on the edge of my seat waiting for them to fix the darn movie or anything, but I think that the Director’s Cut is a vast improvement in an already very enjoyable bit of dark scifi — which isn’t always the case (I’m talking to you, Close Encounters of the Third Kind!)
Next time…Lost Boys 2!!! …maybe.
