[amazonify]B000Y7U98C:right[/amazonify]In my never-ending quest to pur off law school homework, I rented the 2007 film Sunshine off my AppleTV last night. I had heard good things about it, but never got the chance to catch it while it was in the theatres. Besides, it has Chris Evans in it – a reason alone to watch it.

l also have been a long-time fan of Danny Boyle ever since he came out with the film, Trainspotting in the 1990s.

Unlike Trainspotting, or even 28 Days Later, Sunshine is not an instant masterpiece of genre film. It is, instead, just a well-made science fiction work.

Synopsis: In the future, the sun is dying and a team of scientists are on a possibly one-way mission to reignite the star to save life on planet Earth, which is caught in an ice age.

So the crew embarks on its seven-year mission and is strapped into a huge space ship that is one-part huge bomb headed out to re-fuel the star and one-part escape vehicle. On the way it becomes a well-written human drama, a thriller and a film about spiritual journeys.

It was well-worth that rental fee and one of the best science fiction films to be released in the past 10 years.

Nit-picks:

• Premise: The science is faulty here. When a sun like our Sol starts to die, it’s doesn’t get dimmer and cooler, instead it expands and gets hotter short term. Earth will get hotter and eventually burn like a cinder before the sun burns out.
• Artificial gravity: I hate this crutch used in supposed realistic science fiction programs. For some reason when an airlock is re-pressurized, gravity magically appears on the space ship used. In the case of this film, the ship was large enough for it to be spinning, giving the crew at simulated centrifugal force “gravity”.

RATINGS:
Overall: 7 out of 10
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia
Sex: None
Violence: Minimal
Special Effects: Well done
Eye Candy: Attractive cast.

CAST:
 Cliff Curtis … Searle
 Cillian Murphy … Capa
 Michelle Yeoh … Corazon
 Hiroyuki Sanada … Kaneda
 Rose Byrne … Cassie
 Benedict Wong … Trey
 Chris Evans … Mace

[azlite]Danny Boyle,5,quiddity[/azlite]

If you haven’t watched this bizarre and fun series before, you may want to give it a try. Don’t let the “Family Channel” home make you think its a vapid religious-tinged show. It isn’t.

It is one of the most socially liberal TV series on the air now, featuring everything from smart writing to lesbian moms to anti-war sentiments.

If you are new to the show, ABC Family will be showing a marathon all day Monday to catch you on on the story. Set your DVRs and get ready to be hooked.

I honestly didn’t think I’d pay to see a movie worse than Spider-Man 3 this year. I was wrong.

I plopped down $10.25 to see a little gem (if by “gem” you mean load of crap) called, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (or “AVPR,” for short).

Now, I have to say despite its many, many flaws, I still found myself amused – slightly. The film almost walked the line between campy spoof humor and kick-butt action. The special effects and the art direction were top notch. The cast was good – sometimes very good.

But, the main problem was that the sub-plot of humans in danger and the dialogue writing sucked big time.

Here, the main characters that draw the audience into the theatres are the acid-blooded Aliens and techie-savage Predators. The problem, neither of these characters talk – the most noise either of these makes is a clicking growl or screech.

This means the supporting humans must have interactions and dialogue worthy enough to draw in the audience enough for it to suspend disbelief in what is a pretty unbelievable concept. That just doesn’t happen.

[NOTE: Matters don't get much better when the plot holes are so big that it's hard to follow the story because the audience is talking out loud asking valid questions such as, "now why didn't they just drive away in the tank?"]

With not-so-witty banter such as, “You’re too stupid to talk, shut up!” and “People are dying; we need guns,” screenwriter Shane Salerno is living up to his track record of writing really bad movies. He’s responsible for two other piles of bad dialogue in 2000′s Shaft remake and 1998′s Armageddon. I seriously wonder how he continues to dupe movie studios into paying him money to write.

It’s a shame.

The Alien franchise is one of the best in science fiction horror history. But now it has devolved to the level of self-aware bad camp. Sad.

Final rating: Horrible. 1 star out of 5.

(It gets the one star instead of zero for three reasons: 1. they avoid the save-the-babies for no apparent reason cliche of most horror films, 2. A laugh-out-loud scene when Daddy is telling his little girl there is no such thing as monsters, and 3. the creators put in little non-subtle but amusing nods to just about every famous horror movie made in the past 50 years.)