Review: Like almost all of Danny Boyle's movies, this great film has a weaker final act. It takes the thrill and intensity of surviving a journey toward the sun and turns it into a slasher horror at the end. The intense heat of the sun, the freezing vacuum of space and the dangers of human error and emotion used during the majority of the film were more effective and believable obstacles to the mission's success. Still, the last act only removes a half star from my rating.
SPOILER ALERT: The concept of the Captain of Icarus I going insane is not bad, but they should have kept him off the Icarus II. Let the failure of Icarus I just remain a mystery for the second crew to solve.
Quotes:
"Kaneda, Searle, report to flight deck."
"What's up?"
"We have an excess of manliness breaking out in the comm center."
"Icarus, how close is this to full brightness?
"At this distance of 36 million miles, you are observing the sun at two percent of full brightness."
"Two percent? Can you show me four percent?"
"Four percent would result in irreversible damage to your retinas."
"The question is: Does the risk of the detour outweigh the benefits of an extra payload?"
"We'll have a vote."
"No, no. No, we won't. We're not a democracy. We're a collection of astronauts and scientists. So we're gonna make the most informed decision available to us."
"Made by you by any chance?"
"Made be the person best qualified to understand the complexities of the payload delivery: our physicist."
"Shit."
"In order to change the route, I had to manually override Icarus. So I made all the calculations myself, and I double- and triple-checked them. They all worked out. So I set the new coordinateness and put us on our way."
"So what's the problem? The trajectory is wrong?"
"The trajectory is good. But it changes our angle of approach to the sun by 1.1 degrees."
"You didn't reset the shields to the new angle."
"I forgot. My head was so full of velocities and fuel calculations and a million different... I FORGOT!!! ALL RIGHT?! People do shit. They get stressed and... and fuck up. I fucked up."
"We should split up."
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea..."
"You're probably right. We might get picked off one at a time by aliens."
"With Searle and Harvey gone, we lost two breathers. We have enough oxygen for four crew to make it to the payload delivery point."
"So we'll do it."
"I'll do it. I'm not passing any bucks."
"Well, then..."
"We'll vote this time. Unanimous decision required. Well, you know where I stand."
"And me."
"What are you asking? That we weigh the life of one man versus the future of all mankind? Kill him."
4 1/2 out of 5 Stars
