Pun Salad

Testing my Sunday Basic Cable Movie Actor Theory:

• 2pm on FX: I, Robot with Will Smith.

This is a pretty good movie, directed by Danny Boyle, who also did 28 Days Later and Millions.

The premise is that our sun is fading out, dooming humanity. This can only be fixed by blowing up a Manhattan-sized bomb near the solar surface. Such as the one carried by the Icarus II.

It's the Icarus II because it's on the same mission as Icarus I, which dropped into silence seven years previously, and presumably failed. (If this makes you suspect that the Icarus I will show up eventually, congratulations.)

The movie is deemed "psychological" science fiction, presumably because a good fraction of the crew are nuts in the beginning of the movie, and it only gets worse. Critical miscalculations cause an escalating series of technological catastrophes. Since humanity's fate hinges on the mission, almost all the crew have a big "KILL ME, I'M EXPENDABLE" sign on their backs, and they're all aware of the implications.

The lovely Michelle Yeoh plays one of the crew, but she does not kick anyone's ass.

There's a lot of arty photography and quick-cutting, which often hides what's going on; I always suspect this is a method to avoid bloating the special effects budget. (Also a giveaway: the ship has "artificial gravity".)