Sunshine

Set in the year 2057, our sun is dying. Without Sunshine mankind faces extinction. Earth's last hope lay with a crew of eight courageous men and women who are on a mission to ignite the fading star with a massive nuclear weapon. On their voyage, the crew lose radio contact with Earth, and their mission begins to unravel, placing them and humankind in peril. (Stacey Pendry)

Special features include up-front previews; two commentary tracks: one by Director Danny Boyle, the second by Dr. Brian Cox, University Of Manchester; nine deleted scenes with an optional commentary track by Boyle; six more deleted scenes without optional commentary; a 23-part featurette Web Production Diaries (47 minutes); two short films: Dad's Dead (eight minutes) and Mole Hills (seven minutes); and the original theatrical trailer for this film. There are also 12 deleted scenes with optional commentary from Boyle; an option for behind-the-scenes' footage and interviews during the film in A Brilliant Vision: Enhanced Viewing With The Filmmakers Of Sunshine; a picture-in-picture feature, Journey Into Sound: Surround Sound Enhancement; and additional trailers for Blu-ray Disc movies.

The anamorphically enhanced 2.32:1 DVD exhibits a somewhat hazy picture, with less-than-stellar black levels indoors and images generally looking like they have a film covering them. The black of space is generally better rendered. Fine details can be delivered nicely, but there are times when compression artifacts can damage that aspect. Edge enhancement is not problematic, and rarely is even visible. The H.264 AVC-encoded Blu-ray Disc shows deep, solid blacks with good shadow delineation, creating a nicely dimensional image. There are many scenes, however, that look smeared. Colors are fairly well balanced, but fleshtones can have a pallid appearance. (Danny Richelieu)

The Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel soundtrack can be quite exciting, with good phantom imaging around the room, and impressive pans between each channel pair. There are times when the surround stage can be lacking in imaging between the two channels, which is noticeable and somewhat disappointing. Fidelity is pristine, with natural-sounding dialogue that is always intelligible, and full, undistorted effects. Deep bass seems to be somewhat lacking, especially considering the genre, and the LFE channel is not incorporated with much gusto. The soundtrack is quite enjoyable, but not perfect. The Blu-ray Disc's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio encoding provides impressive fidelity and dynamic range, but there are recognizable times when a shuffling distortion can be audible, which can be a distraction and wasn't as audible in the DVD's lossy encoding. (Danny Richelieu)