Danny Boyles space drama is tantalisingly close to greatness, yet some of the silliness of the third act holds it back from the finish line. The story involves a spaceship's last ditch attempt to reignite the dying sun using a bomb. If the crew fail then Earth - and everyone on it - will die. So no pressure then. Their situation is not helped when their ship is damaged and they start running out of oxygen. Things become unbearably tense when an evil astronaut - driven crazy by exposure to the sun boards their ship and starts killing everyone. The survivors manage to get close enough to the sun to drop their payload, setting it off in a final noble sacrifice. Not a happy outcome for them, but they at least get to view the sun up-close for a moment before it consumes them. And the final shot makes it seem like they saved the world, which isn't a bad day's work.
