Danny Boyle‘s “change of tack” at the end of Sunshine (Fox Searchlight, 7.20) “feels jagged with impatience and panic,” writes New Yorker critic Anthony Lane in one of the best-written critiques of this interesting but enormously infuriating sci-fier that I’ve read anywhere. (It’s suddenly hit me that I haven’t posted a word myself — sometimes I just turn away and say nothing when a film seems as shockingly miscalculated as this one.)

“Villainy descends upon the spaceship, but so pressing is the question of why and how it got there, and what factor sun cream it must have been lathering on, that Boyle tries to disguise the uncertainty with visual effects, smearing almost every shot into a distorted haze.
“Beware of filmmakers who shy from clarity just when we need it most, and ask yourself what happened to the Boyle who offered that unflinching view of drug abuse in Trainspotting, with its scabrous highs. He has not so much taken leave of his senses, I think, as allowed them to overwhelm him. Blame it on the sunshine.”