Fifty years from now, the sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier.

Director Danny Boyle has promised "Sunshine" to be an "intense, psychological journey" and he has kept the promise. The movie deals with a different aspect of what has been a repetitive subject in popular sci-fi movies like "Armageddon". However, taking a different route, "Sunshine" does not delve into the extinction of humanity in its entirety. Instead, it focuses on just eight humans, namely the astronauts on board the Icarus II that is sent on a mission to save the sun as well as Earth.

These astronauts embody all the anxiety necessary to reflect the emotional turbulence faced by Earth's society over their impending threat. Astronauts, they may be, but in essence, they are all just humans like everybody else. Each have their own set of faiths and beliefs, and it is triumphantly translated on to the screen with a cast from very diverse backgrounds.

To some, the sun is a divine creation, even religious perhaps, while to others, it is purely science. This film explores the deeper, darker side of the human mind when faced with the pressure of carrying a nuclear bomb in their bid to save mankind, all the while knowing that there is a chance they might never survive or make it back to Earth at all. With the weight of humanity crushing on the crew's shoulders, it becomes a struggle to balance their emotions and more importantly, keeping their sanity intact.

However, centering on the psychological effects of the mission to just 8 people, the film fails to bury in our minds the grave danger of such threat, if it were ever to befall us. It needn't be a sci-fi film set in space 50 years in the future to deliver the same message. Think of this film as "Deep Impact" crossed with "Saw", minus the horror. It even comes complete with a mad villain who serves no other purpose except to terrorise and eliminate the crew. The special effects provide visual insights into the power that the sun can emit but overall, its imagery falls short of taking your breath away. For what it's worth, the film conveys what it intends to - "an intense, psychological journey" - and that is all.

You have got to suspend your intellectual and common sense faculties when you watch "Sunshine". The plot, about a second space mission (set 50 years into the future) to fly to the dying Sun and 'nuke' it back to life, demands an awful lot of 'narrative licence' on the part of the scripters. We all know that the Sun would die out some day but 50 years from now?

Also, we have to 'buy' all that scientific mumbo-jumbo about its spaceship, ominously named 'Icarus 2', hurtling towards the sun, protected only by a huge shield that deflects the sun's rays. Now, even if that were scientifically possible, the name of the spaceship (from Greek mythology) would definitely give the plot away...

When we join the Icarus 2 mission after 16 months into the journey, we learn that the first Icarus spaceship has 'disappeared without a trace'. On board are eight scientists and astronauts, including a biologist named Corazon (our own Michele Yeoh) who provides the crew with fresh air and food in her Oxygen Garden.

However, right from the opening, Murphy's Law (that anything that can go wrong will go wrong) applies - and we get the usual squabbles and relationship tension from the space-travellers led by Capt Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada). With a couple of hotheads like physicist Capa (Cillian Murphy) and flight engineer Mace (Chris Evans of "Fantastic Four") brawling like schoolchildren, we wonder how these guys get picked for the mission in the first place.

True, these human entanglements help to sustain the movie until the next 'big problem' unravels, but we feel no sympathy for most of the crew and stay detached from their mission. The dialogue, by Alex Garland, is pedestrian and trite, and whatever hint of an on-board romance between navigator Cassie (Rose Byrne) and another crew member soon fizzles out for want of proper development.

The biggest problem for "Sunshine" is predictability. You would know, by the bankability of the actor or actress, who would last longest in the movie - and you don't have to watch the whole series of Star Trek movies to know that something from the first Icarus mission is going to crop up and mess up the mission. Trouble is, the subplot also messes up the movie big time. The first two-thirds of the movie go reasonably well like "2001: A Space Odyssey" (complete with its sweet voiced Hal-like computer) but the third act takes the effort into cheap "Slasher" territory.

To be fair, director Danny Boyle (of "Trainspotting") seems to have a good thing going in the first half, especially in the technical department. Cinematography (by Alwin H. Kuchler) is first class, with stunning visuals of space stations, passing planets and solar glare. The cast are solid too, especially the Asian members like Sanada, Yeoh and Benedict Wong (as Trey) who provide most of the heart-rending sequences.

For all its production values, "Sunshine" could have been a great sci-fi flick if Boyle had tried something new instead of resorting to cliches and cheap shocks to get our attention. It may be rather risky but the pay-off would be a sci-fi adventure that really shines.