Set the controls for the heart of the sun

We spent this sweltering summer weekend watching movies. Sunshine was plugged as being a cross between Armageddon and 2001; I've not seen the first film, but I'm a big 2001 fan so I was excited about this. Big mistake to believe the hype. Some years in the future, the sun is faltering (it's not explained why) causing potentially fatal global cooling. A crew in a ship called the Icarus II (following the disaster of Icarus I a few years earlier) is heading for the sun to re-ignite it with a massive nuclear payload. After a series of problems on board, they run across the original Icarus with no sign of life, but with lots of food and oxygen, which they will need if they hope to make it back to earth after delivering the bomb. After a solid first hour which does indeed feel inspired by 2001 (an on-board computer with a human voice, recorded messages home, philosophical mysteries, and a few shots which visually quote the Kubrick film), it turns into Alien, with a rather far-fetched "monster" creating havoc. Cillian Murphy is a bland (and kind of gross looking) leading man; the very hot Chris Evans (the Human Torch) is never allowed to be shirtless; the best acting comes from Michelle Yeoh and Hiroyuki Sanada, but neither one makes it to the end. There are some great shots of the sun as seen through the ship's observation deck, though a potentially interesting subplot about how staring at the sun may not be good you physically or psychologically is never allowed to come to fruition. The end has some great fx but is otherwise a huge letdown.

On DVD, we caught up with an SF flick from last year, The Host, from Korea. This was a lively, funny, creepy film which is about 15 minutes too long (isn't every movie these days about 15 minutes too long?). A dysfunctional extended family winds up right at the center of events when a giant amphibian worm/snake/slimy-thing monster comes leaping out of the Han River, eating people and snatching the family's young daughter. She is assumed dead--there is a very funny (albeit in a black-humor way) scene at a mass memorial for the dead--but when her slacker father gets a cell phone call from her, he decides to leave no stone unturned to find her before the monster gets around to eating her, with the whole family helping out. (Because the family business is an outdoor food stand, they reminded me of the Bluths of Arrested Development.) We know the beast was created from the lackadaisical dumping of old formaldehyde by a U.S. military base in Korea, setting up a nice Godzilla parallel. Later in the film, there is a confusing subplot in which the government announces that the monster is spreading a deadly virus, but this turns out to be false; as a plot device, it's a convenient way to throw obstacles in the path of our family, but thematically (a government lying to its citizens as a way to keep them scared--sound familiar?) this falls by the wayside with no payoff. Nevertheless, the film is well worth watching for its nice mix of terror and humor, for its good effects, and because it's one of the few monster films which mostly takes place in broad daylight. There's a nicely shot last scene, though I'm not sure what it means, if it really means anything.

We also saw Meet Me in St. Louis at the Ohio Theater downtown, a wonderfully restored old movie palace which shows classic movies on the gigantic screen in the summertime, and I watched a fun 50's B-horror flick called Zombies of Mora Tau, with the statuesque Alison Hayes (the star of the original Attack of the 50-Foot Woman) and the handsome Gregg Palmer (see pic) facing down some zombies who are guarding a sunken treasure. It's not very scary and it's a little slow moving, but it's fairly slickly made for its ilk (though the non-slick productions have their own pleasures).