Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Decent sci-fi movies are pretty rare these days, but Sunshine is an exception. The story, concerning a mission to try to revive a dying sun with a giant bomb blast, is intelligent and tense - at least until the last third, when it turns into "There's a monster onboard, killing us off one by one." But the preceding two thirds are Grade A entertainment.

The Blu-ray Disc offers vivid contrast between the bluish spaceship interiors (with equally bluish skin tones) and the bright yellow-red-orange views of the sun. However, the overall picture is kept from being reference-quality by a tiny but almost omnipresent bit of video noise. There's also a certain two-dimensionality; the picture seldom pops the way a really good high-def image should. The DTS-HD Master Audio mix is rather flat, too, since the surround channels aren't used to good effect except during the big set pieces.

Extras include an enthusiastic commentary by director Danny Boyle and an exceptional one by Dr. Brian Cox, who points out the differences between science fact and science fiction in a most entertaining way. Also here are some interesting deleted scenes (with informative commentary by Boyle) and a group of entirely negligible "Web production diaries."

The bad news: Unless you have a 1.1 or 2.0 HDMI-compliant Blu-ray Disc player, you won't be able to access all of the special features on this disc. The good news: You haven't lost much. The Java-driven picture-in-picture segments can be played continuously by any Blu-ray player, taking less than 30 minutes. And the feature that allows you to create a rudimentary sound mix for a few scenes of the movie isn't nearly as sophisticated as the technology it requires.

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