"Sunshine"

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Rose Burn,

Chris Evans, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cliff Curtis and Michelle Yeoh

Rated: R for violent content and language

Running time: 107 minutes

Released: 2007

I’ve always had a tepid relationship with science fiction. Setting phasers to stun and robots named HAL just never really interested me.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the “Star Trek” movies (some of them) and no one is a bigger fan of the “Alien” series than I am. It’s just that I was never really sold on the final frontier.

That said, I’m big enough to admit when a science-fiction film comes along that is absolutely amazing, I’ll have no problem watching it and singing its praises a dozen times over.

That’s why I’m writing about “Sunshine” this week, an incredible psychological thriller that just happens to take place aboard a spaceship.

It’s the year 2057 and the sun is sick. In a nutshell, it’s experiencing an internal anomaly that’s basically causing it to fade at a rapid rate. If it fades completely, then Earth will fade with it. In other words, we all die.

To prevent that, a team of eight people are sent aboard the Icarus II, a space station headed towards the sun with hopes of re-igniting it via a colossal nuclear weapon. We’re talking so big that it’d be impossible to gather enough materials in time to make another one before the sun dies.

Essentially, the team has only one shot.

Part of my issue with the sci-fi genre is the jargon and far-fetchedness that goes along with it. So I understand that using a word like “re-ignite” sounds hokie, but believe me when I tell you that a lot of research went into making “Sunshine” and most of it is scientifically accurate.

Back to the plot, obviously, delivering a bomb to the sun isn’t as easy as it sounds (and I say that facetiously). The sun is roughly 93 million miles away. Not exactly a hop, skip and a jump.

Needless to say it’ll take awhile to get there. Years, in fact, which leaves a lot of time to kill.

With such a giant ship and only eight people aboard it, you’d think there’d be enough room to give everyone a little space (no pun intended).

Through the use of advanced simulators, the astronauts are able to get a little taste of the outdoors, which relaxes them. But I don’t care how good a simulator you have, a walk in the park is a walk in the park. Hard to do that out in the Milky Way.

The problem with being in closed quarters is that they’re just that — closed quarters. And that starts getting to them.

They say to err is human and that’s precisely the problem when you’re in a situation like that. Human error can cause damage, turn Plan As into Plan Bs and can even be enough to make someone commit murder. And in closed quarters, there aren’t a lot of places to run.

What started out as eight people setting out to save humanity quickly turns into them having to save themselves from lunacy. This sometimes can take the form of a man.

Sounds profound, and it is (the movie, not my ranting), but it’s also highly effective and entertaining. “Sunshine” is one of those films that keeps you on the edge of your seat from almost the very beginning, because almost anything could go wrong at any time. And it usually does.

Enduring what begins to go wrong is the cast of eight actors. They do an excellent job of simply being believable. In a character-driven film like this, believability is half the battle and on that front they deliver.

Cillian Murphy plays the lead role of physicist, Capa, and if you read my review on “Red Eye” awhile back, then you already know how gifted an actor I think he is.

Even Chris Evans in the role of engineer Mace gives a solid performance. Oddly enough he played the Human Torch in the “Fantastic Four” movies and thanks to those I had pretty much written him off as a comic relief who wasn’t that funny.

Well, he’s not funny in “Sunshine,” either, and thankfully he’s not supposed to be. He does play a convincing astronaut, though.

Bottom line, “Sunshine” is a great science fiction film that gets you so wrapped up in the story and suspense you forget you’re watching a science fiction film.

So even if you’re like me and aren’t particularly a huge sci-fi fan, you can still get plenty of enjoyment out of it. And if you are a huge sci-fi fan, then give yourself a pat on the back because I’m sure you feel vindicated.

The fact that Danny Boyle (“28 Days Later,” “Slumdog Millionaire”) directed it isn’t too shabby, either.

Either way, “Sunshine” won’t disappoint.