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Sunshine

* WHERE: Area theaters.

* WHEN: Opens today.

* RATING: R for violent content and language.

* RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes.

* BOTTOM LINE: High drama in space, as eight astronauts are sent on a mission to reignite the sun.

Danny Boyle's science-fiction drama "Sunshine" is the rare movie that clearly and self-consciously references classic films - in this case, Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and Ridley Scott's "Alien" - and still emerges as something bold and original.

Some 50 years in the future, the crew of Icarus II is flying toward the sun on a dangerous mission to reignite the fading sun and save humanity from a frozen death. The crew of eight knows the mission may be a one-way trip because Icarus I, which tried it before, disappeared. (I wondered, as did my fellow critic Roger Ebert, about the double jinx of the name Icarus I - the mythological Icarus fell while flying too close to the sun, and the Roman numeral practically demands there be others to follow.)

When Icarus II rounds Mercury, the ship picks up the distress signal from Icarus I. Capt. Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) is faced with the decision: Continue the mission, or risk the lives of the crew - not to mention all of Earth - to rendezvous with Icarus I. Kaneda turns to the ship's physicist, the thoughtful young scientist Capa (Cillian Murphy), who opts to change course to contact Icarus I, in hopes of retrieving that ship's payload and gaining two chances to relight the sun's pilot light.

From that fateful decision spins everything that follows in "Sunshine," as tensions among the crew - including the kind pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne), the bullheaded engineer Mace (Chris Evans, from "Fantastic Four"), communications officer Harvey (Troy Garity), psychologist Searle (Cliff Curtis), botanist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) and navigator Trey (Benedict Wong) - reach the breaking point.

The crew dynamics perfectly mirror that of the Nostromo, the ship from "Alien" - so much so that writer Alex Garland (who wrote the Boyle-directed "28 Days Later") even drops a joke about it, one of the few bits of humor in this dour drama. The reference to "Alien" compliments both films, paying homage to Scott's classic and showing how determined Boyle is to play in that league.

Boyle's real gamble is to evoke Kubrick's depictions of the paradox of space travel - claustrophobic ships in the vastness of open space - that fueled the awesome spectacle of "2001." The spaceship sequences are done entirely with computer-generated images, but the contrast between darkness and light (as the ship's massive heat shield provides shade from the blinding sun) provides the tactile feel of old-fashioned visual effects. Kubrick would have been impressed.

But all the visual panache and science-fiction reverence would be nothing without the human element. "Sunshine" has that, with characters who grasp both the wonder of space and the importance of their desperate mission. When they shine, so does the movie.

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* SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.