Sunshine

This has to be one of the strangest film experiences I've had.  For all practical purposes, I should hate this film.  I've hated many films in the past for the very reasons this film gives me, yet I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film.  The movie is set in a future where the sun has (for some unexplained reason) begun to burn less brightly.  Our heros are members of a special mission sent from earth to "reignite the sun".  Yeah, that's really the plot.  I remember when this movie came out in theaters and that alone was reason enough to ignore it completely (or so I thought).

However, this movie is very well cast, superbly acted, at times visually stunning, and has very good production values.  Someone clearly put a lot of thought into the design of the spaceship, however implausible the purpose it was built for, and the design team and direction bring a strong sense of reality and immediacy to the voyage and experience of life in space.

The ridiculousness of the plot's premise is unfortunately not its only weakness.  The characters make what seem like pretty stupid choices at times for no discernible reason other than to take the plot where the writers want it to go.  Again, this would be fatal to my enjoyment in almost any other movie, but for some reason I can almost forgive it here.  Perhaps it's the sheer audacity with which it embraces the idea that the sun would mysteriously start to burn out without first having gone red-giant and frying us all to a crisp, or that we'd be able to kickstart it once it did.  If you can accept the premise (or at least willingly suspend your disbelief) the story does take itself seriously and if it doesn't quite make you believe, at least it doesn't punish you for giving it the chance.  One has to wonder, though, if all the good things about this movie couldn't have been hung on a better premise with just a little more thought.

The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown


I'm all for a good cliff hanger, but someone needs to tell Dan Brown that putting one at the end of every freakin' chapter is a tad much.  Seriously, could we have a chapter that *doesn't* end with a character finding out some earth-shattering tidbit of information that, of course, Dan Brown is going to withhold from the reader until the next chapter involving that character?  Guess what, Dan?  We've already bought the book, or borrowed it or whatever.  The bottom line is we're reading the damned thing.  Why torture us with "tune in next chapter. . ."?

I can't recall if this was a problem with the previous Dan Brown novels I read.  At any rate, it wasn't quite as glaring.  Or maybe it was because I was more interested in the plots of those.  ***SPOILER ALERT***  This book sets us up with the idea that our forefathers were possessed of a great secret.  Unfortunately it sounds a lot like this secret is going to be The Secret (tm).  You know, that ground-breaking revelation that the universe bends to the well attuned mind and to have whatever you want you only have to will it into being.  (Gag.)  How exciting! The great mystery of the centuries didn't need to be hidden somewhere in the US Capitol by the Masons.  You can find it in any of a half dozen Franklin Covey publications, which will probably be about as compelling as this novel.


View all my reviews