Sunshine is set 50 years in the future, after dark matter has collided with the sun and started to die. A group of 8 scientists have been sent to reignite the sun with a giant thermonuclear bomb the size on Manhattan. The Icarus project, as it is known has already tried this with the spaceship Icarus I and seven years later they send their last hope of survival, Icarus II.

When the spaceship is approaching Mercury, you get a sense of how massive the sun really is. The Sun fills the screen and all you can see is a little black speck orbiting. When the crew get closer to Mercury they start to hear the Icarus I distress signal. The crew then have to decide whether they should make the ever so slight course change to meet up with the lost ship. This decision is left to the Physicist to decide the benefits of possibly having two payloads. In the end he decides that it would be better with two ships and tells the captain.

This is where things start to go wrong, as the navigator Trey is preparing for the new course he forgets to correct the angle of the heat shields which could have potentially ruined the mission. Fortunately only a few of the heat shields were damaged and Capa, the physicist and Keneda, the captain go on a space walk to fix these damaged shields. This is the first time you see the crew with these massive space suits, they are coated in gold to help reflect the sun, and look more like old scuba suits that space ones. As Capa and Keneda need to get onto the front of the shield, Cassie needs to manually rotate the shield to get as much of it in the shade as possible to help the two men complete their task. As she needed to rotate the ship at such an angle the two communication towers are lost to the intense heat. Light is then reflected from the combination towers directly into the Oxygen garden which sets alight. To extinguish the fire they release most of their oxygen reserves to flush the fire out. As the oxygen garden is lost the computer overrides the manual alignment of the heat shield forcing Capa to return and Kaneda being forced to complete the task alone, he succeeds but is incinerated in the process.

When they meet up with Icarus I, four members of the crew board the ship. While boaring the audience see clips of the original crew for a few frames at a time so the audience begin to expect something bad is going to happen. It is discovered that the ships computer was sabotaged and that the crew killed themselves. Despit this they find that the oxygen garden is in perfect condition and thriving which would provide ample amount of oxygen for Icarus II. But suddenly the airlock that is connecting the two ships is unexplainably disconnected. This is a cool moment in the film, as almost everyone instinctively puts Capa in the only remaining space suit sacrificing themselves without even talking about it, that is apart from the Communications officer who is now the captain orders Capa out of the suit. This is ignored by everyone else, and Searle is left behind to open the manually open the hatch while Mace and Harvy wrap themselves in insulation from the ship and cling onto Capa’s space suite. While crossing the vacume of space Harvey lets go of Capa and freezes to death while Mace survives.

The remaining crew are now faced with a problem as five crew members cannot make it to the sun with the remaining oxygen they have but four will. They decide that Trey must be sacrificed for the good of the mission, as he was already suicidal and they think that it must have been him who cut the airlock. It is discovered though that Trey has already committed suicide taking responsibility for his actions. While checking the payload Capa is informed by the computer that there are infact 5 people still on board the ship. The computer points him in the direction of the observation room. We find that this is Pinbacker, the captain of Icarus I, he is horribly burnt and he is never really in focus and you can’t quite see him. Pinbacker stabs Capa but he makes it into the airlock. He then gives up on Capa to go and kill Corazon and sabotage the computer, he then chases Cassie into the payload.

Mace tries to restore the computer to control the ship, succeeds but dies in the process. Capa then must release the payload manually. So he puts on the spacesuit and depressurizes the spaceship, decouples the payload and manages to board it a few moments before the boosters fire propelling it towards the sun. Inside the payload Pinbacker attacks Capa but manages to escape thanks to Cassie. Capa manages to detonate the bomb just in time. Back on earth, while watching Capa’s last message his family witness a sudden brightness and they know the mission was a success.

Sunshine is a very powerful movie which leaves a lot of things to the imagination, such as Cassie and Capa’s relationship which was very subtle and also the power of the sun. At the start of the movie you see then in the observation room looking at the sun at 2% brightness. He then tells the computer to raise it to 3.1% which is a blinding light, you see his eyes going glazed as though he was going mad. Overall I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes sci-fi or action adventure movies.

Little Miss Sunshine is a road movie that follows the journey of a dysfunctional family on their 800 mile trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to California. On the way many mishaps occur and this is what brings about the comedy in the film.

The film opens with a shot of olive watching and re watching the winning of the Miss America pageant, from this shot it is quite clear that she desperately wants to win this competition and this is her driving force within this film. We are slowly introduced to each character one by one bringing with it their motivational drive to the film. Richard, the father, is a failed motivational speaker which is irony in its self as he is always banging on about being a winner and how to become one. Dwayne is a 15 year old teenager who reads Nietzche works, he has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Edwin, the grandfather, is introduced snorting heroin. You later find out that he was in fact kicked out of his retirement home for snorting it. Frank has just tried to commit suicide and has been dumped on the family as the only people that will take care of him. Sheryl, the mother, is the glue that is holding the family together. At the start of the film when introducing Frank to Dwayne she brushes of his vow of silence as “a little quiet”.

Olive is obviously not beauty pageant material and gets through the regional round on a technicality, after much arguing between the family it is decided that they will all go because no one can be left alone for various reasons and flying is not possible because of the families financial situation.

The Road Trip takes place in a Volkswagen T2 Microbus, which becomes a character in itself as the movie progresses. As the bus is old and has defiantly seen better days it doesn’t take well to being driven 800 miles in 2 days and starts to break. First to go is the clutch, this renders moving the clutch form 1-2 usless and the only way they can drive is by rolling down a hill and gaining 20mph or as Richard says “what if there’s no hill?” they have to push the bus and jump in one by one once it has gained enough speed. Next to go is the horn which breaks so that its stuck on going off every other second, this leads to a funny clip where they are stuck in traffic and the drivers around him think that he is honking at them.

The climax of the film takes place at the beauty pageant where they are 5 minutes late and almost aren’t allowed to sign up, until the friendly sound guy helps them out. At the beauty pageant we start to get an idea for how Olive isn’t meant be there and really sticks out like a sore thumb. But it isn’t until the girls talent performances until you start to feel how wrong these shows are, 7 year old girls dressing up in adult swimming costumes and tarting around on stage. This is cleverly portrayed during Olives, before now unseen, performance where she dances to “Super Freak” by “Rick James” where lyrics include “The girls a super freak” and “That girl is pretty kinky”. I think this is Grandpa’s way of mocking the whole situation, as he taught her the moves. The dance horrifies the audience and many begin to leave, whether it’s because of the dance or the song isn’t really shown, but the Miss California judge is really enjoying the performance which suggests that this would be alright if it was an adult performing it.

“Little Miss Sunshine” has been nominated and won many different awards, most of which revolving around “Best Picture”. Although the film has been marketed as a inherently funny film, I don’t think this is true. It’s more of a dramatic film with dark comedy spread throughout so If while watching the film you’re looking for laughs then you may just be disappointed. But if you’re going to see the film to enjoy yourself then you will find yourself laughing out loud many times during the film.