The Sunshine Superman of the title is Carl Boenish, who was a recreational skydiver who developed a new offshoot extreme sport which would go on to be called BASE jumping (Buildings – Antennas – Spans (bridges) – Earth (cliffs)). This sport involved the participant diving off vertigo inducing heights in order to free-fall for a number of pulse-pounding seconds only to pull a parachute as late as is safely possible. The sport became Boenish's life and he went on to plan a series of jumps including the El Capitan cliff-face in Yosemite and skyscrapers under construction in Los Angeles. Needless to say, he was (quite reasonably) at odds with the authorities who were very nervous about the safety of such a new and seemingly dangerous pastime. Of great benefit to the film-makers here, Boenish made recordings of most of the dives he was involved in; in fact he said that the recording of it was completely integral to it. Aside from a few dramatic re-enactments with actors, this is all original material. As such, there is a lot of great footage to be enjoyed here, including some stunning new aerial photography made specifically for the film, where we sweep over cliffs and latterly follow a man in an extraordinary flying suit. This is a very handsome looking documentary, which is also sound-tracked to a selection of very well chosen contemporary music.

While this is primarily a celebration of its main character and the sport he created. It also has an important love story too. Boenish met his wife Jean at one of the early screenings of his films and they would go on to become an important team who would ceaselessly promote BASE jumping. This led to them travelling to Norway to take part in a television event where they broke the world record after jumping off the imposing Trollveggen cliffs. The following day Boenish died while attempting a second jump off a cliff he had previously considered too dangerous. His reasons for doing so remain largely a mystery.

BASE jumping is certainly a very cinematic sport, with the incredible visuals it offers. These days it perhaps seems second nature to make these dives with helmet cameras but back then it was a new idea and Boenish had to attach bulky cameras to himself in order to achieve it. And in the film's most uncomfortable event we watch him climb a home-made ladder device which extends way out into space over the sheer drop of a huge cliff. We watch him climb this with no safety harness and then turn awkwardly around at the top to sit on a bike seat so that he can film his friends jump off from the best angle. I'm getting feelings of vertigo just thinking of this, it was so absurdly daring. Boenish, of course, looked like he was having a laugh.

It was a really good film that did a good job of capturing a moment in time and sketching out one man's contribution to Earth's history.

It's the exciting portrait of Carl Boenish, once an engineer, found the job boring in comparison to his hobby of Skydiving and while turning this, and his love of film, into a career he help to create BASE Jumping.

A lot of the footage from the movie was filmed by the subject himself, as he loves to film his jumps as much or more than he love to jump. All this personal footage made for a very personal documentary, especially as his friends and family narrated the entire film and told their own personal accounts of him.

One of the things I noticed about documentaries about subjects that are barely thirty to thirty five years old is that they have a lot of footage they can use. Boenish was enough of a celebrity in his own time, that the doc was able to use footage from TV and news coverage of the man as well as his own cinematography. And like other contemporary docs they used a lot of different forms of medium, like reenactments of things that did not happen on camera.

Which was not a lot. The filmmakers job was fairly easy as Carl love to document his life, and what a life it was, filled with nothing but joy and happiness, and inspiration to live life to the fullest to the very end.

Without doing much expect having the people still around to tell his story, tell it story, it became an up tempo doc that gets your spirits high after watching it.

As documentaries go this film was in the process of being made from the first day that Carl Boenish decided that it would be a cool idea to jump off of a very high cliff, and if at all possible, film his own descent by attaching a camera on to the top of his helmet. In todays technical environment of March 2016, with wing span suits, and more importantly Go Pro cameras that weigh less than two (2) pounds jumping off of a mountain cliff, or a building skyscraper roof is still a huge adrenalin rush, and yes, sky divers, or BASE jumpers as Carl Boenish coined his daredevil activity are still dying for their adrenalin rush today. The equipment used today in BASE jumping may be more technically advanced and safer but there is still a lot of danger and significant risk involved. BASE jumping, is an acronym for Buildings, Antennas, Spans and Earth.

I think what makes this documentary most interesting is some of the people who knew Carl and base jumped with him, as did his wife Jean Boenish hundreds of times, didn't talk about Carl being crazy, or egotistical, or even a film hog. No Carl Boenish was described by his friends, family, and peers as one of the most interesting and intriguing characters they have ever known. I can only imagine what Carl Boenish would be attempting to do if he were alive today. I am sure Carl would be a polar opposite of someone like Johnny Knoxville of the TV/film fame Jackass.

I was most impressed with the pre-planning Carl and his wife Jean would document before attempting any of their jumps. As their BASE jumping in the 1980's was a first not only for the USA, but around the world their reputation preceded them and their BASE jumps were breaking Guinness Book of World records right up to the days prior to Carl's untimely accident in 1984 in Norway.

This documentary reflects the true love (and more importantly trust) that Carl and Jean had in each other as they completed BASE jump after BASE jump with each other. Carl had a lust for life and continued to challenge not only himself but the other BASE jumpers who chose to jump with him. Knowing how the BASE jumping equipment has evolved over the past 30 years, and GoPro cameras light weight and camera resolution have redefined documentaries of today, one can only imagine what Carl and Jean Boenish would be capable of capturing on film today. Sunshine Superman is well worth watching and rates an 8 out of 10 score.