Overreaches itself and burns up in the corona Just as the ill fated Icarus of Greek legend flew too close to the sun and ended up getting his wings burned and falling to earth, so this film, by an amazing coincidental analogy, burns itself out in the latter stages out by over-stretching credibility in terms of plot, screenplay and scientific plausibility.
As many have already commented, the film starts off well enough, and we are treated to many fine CGI sequences which are truly works of art.
Come to the later acts, though, and the film begins to unravel. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with them in their own terms it's just that they are completely at odds with the baseline already set in the initial part of the film. The film ends on a sort mad Wagnerian symphony with many disjointed scenes, as if someone had said, "well I can't think of a way to end this film properly so lets just phase the audience with loads of rapidly cut explosions/slasher scenes/running scenes and hope that they'll all be so awed that they won't notice what a hotch potch I've made."
*** Spoilers ahead ****
OK What really annoyed me about this film, is that yes, a lot of effort had gone in to give it some scientific credibility, like the design of the spaceship, the spacesuits (which yes some reviewers have lambasted for their archaic/bulky look), but think about it if you were going near the sun, then big thick spacesuits would be necessary for thermal protection.
But then it is all thrown away, with scenes in which people with no spacesuits are floating around in space and expected to survive. Hello space is a near vacuum and if you haven't already frozen solid then you're going to explode due to the lack of external pressure.
Then we have the slasher guy, as if somehow Freddy Krueger had wondered onto the set, once again credibility is stretched because how does a guy covered with third degree burns manage to survive on his own for seven years ? Also, when they are messing around in the payload section, how come that's kept oxygenated? it's not like it needs to be aerated for a nuclear explosion to occur.
In the final scenes we see Capa standing serenely having detonated the payload while enormous plasma flares are licking inches from his face, not withstanding the fact that they are now practically on the surface of the sun, how come he doesn't feel (or die from) the heat ? Are physicists somehow immune from the laws of physics ?
***** End of spoilers
In summary then this film, starts off promisingly enough, but then jettisons its own values at an exponential rate, leaving us with the impression that somehow madness has taken over in the artistic process. One wonders if Danny Boyle isn't stuck on some sort of drug induced trip as a hangover from Trainspotting