Cillian Murphy rocketed to fame in 2023 with the release of Oppenheimer. The Christopher Nolan movie marks Murphy’s most prominent leading role to date, with the film going on to gross $975 million worldwide, in addition to earning glowing reviews. The acclaimed Oppenheimer was also a major awards contender, winning Best Picture and Best Director, with Murphy taking home his first Best Actor Oscar. The Nolan film, however, is at the end of a long line of impressive Murphy projects.
Outside of Oppenheimer and his other Nolan collaborations on the three Dark Knight movies and Inception (2010), Murphy will be well known to many viewers for playing Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, a role he’s set to reprise for the upcoming movie, The Immortal Man. It’s 2002’s 28 Days Later, though, that marks Murphy’s first major role as a leading man. This Danny Boyle zombie movie ended up paving the way for a 2007 sci-fi flick that now has a pᴀssionate cult following.
Sunshine Earns A Respectable Accuracy Score From An Astrophysicist
How Cillian Murphy’s Sci-Fi Movie Gets The Sun Right
An astrophysicist analyzes Sunshine
for its scientific accuracy, praising one aspect of the film’s depiction of the Sun. Released in 2007 and marking a reunion between Murphy, Boyle, and screenwriter Alex Garland, the latter of whom wrote 28 Days Later, Sunshine follows an international crew of astronauts on a mission to restart the dying Sun in the year 2057, with Murphy starring in the lead role as Robert Capa. Despite an impressive cast that includes Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, and Hiroyuki Sanada, the movie was a box office disappointment, grossing only $32 million worldwide.
Murphy, Boyle, and Garland have reteamed for 28 Years Later, the first installment of a planned trilogy. Murphy produces the upcoming film and reportedly won’t reprise his role as Jim until the second installment, subтιтled The Bone Temple.
In a recent video for Insider, astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter analyzes the depiction of the Sun in Sunshine, praising the film for its “gorgeous” and “accurate” rendering of the celestial body’s surface. He points out the arcing and flaring as aspects that are particularly accurate. The film loses points, however, for some of its claims about the percentage of the Sun’s power that can safely be observed by humans. Check out Sutter’s analysis below and his score for Sunshine out of 10:
“What really struck me, which was so beautiful and very, very accurate, was the actual surface of the Sun. As the spacecraft is plunging into the sun we get these great images of these giant arcs and flares and prominences, and the sun really does look like that. We have high-resolution imagery of the surface of the Sun that shows just how dynamic and volatile and active and gorgeous it is.
“In real life, you wouldn’t even get as close as that spacecraft got to the Sun. With our current technologies, within a few million miles, you get cooked.
“The amount of solar energy that we receive on the Earth is 0.000000045% of the total solar output. The character is told that he can safely observe the Sun for a limited amount of time at 3.1% of its total brightness. I wouldn’t necessarily trust the computer. Maybe the math all works out, but I’m not playing games.
“I would give it a six [out of 10] because the images of the Sun were gorgeous, accurate, spot-on, and most people don’t get to realize just how gorgeous and dynamic the Sun is.”
Our Take On Sunshine’s Accuracy Score
It’s A Fitting Score For The Movie
There are conflicting reports about Sunshine‘s budget, with some pegging the number at $40 million while others say it’s somewhere in the $25 million range. In either case, the film lost money. Reviews at the time were also somewhat lukewarm, and the film currently has a 76% critics score and a 73% Popcornmeter score on Rotten Tomatoes. In the years since its release, however, its reputation seems to have improved, with its combination of epic sci-fi visuals and intense slasher-movie twist endearing it to audiences.
A score of six out of 10 in terms of accuracy certainly isn’t glowing, but it is respectable, and this seems to fit with the general critical consensus surrounding the movie. Now that Murphy has become a much bigger-name star, Sunshine is a fun movie to revisit, regardless of its scientific accuracy. Even though the movie may get some details wrong when it comes to how long one can safely be exposed to different amounts of the Sun’s power, its story remains as thrilling as ever.
Source: Insider
