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Sunshine opens with one such mission having already failed, and the second well underway. For over a year, the fatefully named Icarus II has been traveling from Earth's orbit toward the center of the solar system: "eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb" in the words of physicist Capa (Murphy). The solar bomb is an enormous disc sheltered from the unforgiving fury of the sun by an array of articulated reflective gold thermal shield panels.

In the shadow of the bomb is the almost vestigial ship, a utilitarian construct of bunker-like spaces with only two concessions to aesthetics: an immersive virtual-reality "Earth room" with 360-degree recordings of comforting terrestrial surroundings, and the all-important "oxygen garden," a leafy hothouse ecosystem that provides fresh veggies as well as O2.

The story takes place entirely en route to the sun, with no cutaways or flashbacks to Earth to provide either relief or perspective on the stakes of the mission. Training, preparation, and farewells to loved ones are all eschewed (except for a broadcast final message from one crew member just before rising solar winds cut off Icarus II's ability to communicate with Earth).

The crew members represent a range of specialties and nationalities: Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), navigator Trey (Benedict Wong) and biologist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), who tends the oxygen garden, are Asian; pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne), medical officer Searle (Cliff Curtis), engineer Mace (Chris Evans) and comm officer Harvey (Troy Garity) are variously American or Asian. (Perhaps surprisingly, there are no darker-hued crew members, whether black, Indian or Middle-Eastern.)

Searle (Cliff Curtis) on the observation deck of Icarus II

An intelligent script and solid performances from the able cast create a crew of characters who talk and generally act like grown-ups rather than action heroes. While there is certainly action and suspense as the crew struggle to manage mishaps, potentially disastrous errors, and ragged emotional states, Sunshine generally plays less as an action film than a thoughtful procedural, not unlike Apollo 13, but with more philosophical overtones—at least for the first hour or so. Best of all, bravura cinematography makes Sunshine one of the most visually exciting films in a long time.

Then, in the final act, the filmmakers unexpectedly introduce a new element that essentially transmogrifies the film into spacefaring horror not unlike Ridley Scott's Alien, or the likes of Pitch Black or Event Horizon. A character driven to madness claims to have "talked with God," who has decreed the extinction of humanity: "It is not our place to challenge God," he declares.

The character uttering these lines remains an opaque cipher—more a plot device than a character, like Michael Myers (or "the Shape") in Halloween. We have no window into this character's point of view, or the ultimate meaning of his God-talk. It seems empty, not just within the narrative but as an element in the story. Is the point to undermine religious experience and thought per se? If so, it shows the same contemptuous, impatient incomprehension as Christopher Hitchens' sneer that religion is "a non-subject" that one need not actually understand in order to attack.

Dramatically, the last-hour descent into slasher territory is not only alienating and odd, but anti-climactic as well. Yes, the fate of the Earth is still at stake, but the threat to the mission is overshadowed by ordinary scary-movie shocks and suspense.

It's hard to see this crucial plot twist as anything other than a bizarre miscalculation that undermines the film's final stab at transcendence. The attempt to replicate 2001's climactic sense of revelation is only partly effective, in part due to the wrong-headed act preceding it, but also perhaps due to the limitations of the sun itself, in our demythologized world, as an icon of transcendence.

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