Gravity (2013)

Gravity features Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, it takes place in space and is considered a thriller.

 

The movie is about A medical engineer and an astronaut who have to work together to survive after a catastrophe destroys their shuttle and leaves them adrift in orbit. The movie begins with the crew working on a satellite when suddenly they are hit with what appears to be asteroid debris. It then goes into the 2 surviving astronauts having to help each other by attaching themselves together. Then there is the ISS space station that they go to but George Clooney needs to detach himself to help her after they become detached from each other due to a piece of debris. Then we get to spend some time with her inside the ISS trying to radio in to Houston and getting no response. We soon find out that she is the sole survivor of the accident. Then we get to the point where she is piloting a Chinese shuttle in order to help secure her survival.

 

First off, I’d like to say just how impressive the visuals of this film is amazing. I was completely amazed by the special effects used in this film. I’ve seen the behind the scenes and how this whole film was shot as green screen. I have to say that the CGI in this film is great. It really helped add to the story. I loved how I could see floating flames inside the space station when Bullock was inside. I loved being able to see the weightlessness of both Bullock and Clooney in this film. It was even pretty cool to see Bullock changing into a completely different astronaut suit in the film. The idea of low oxygen levels in the film helped to keep the suspense going in the movie. You never quite knew when she was going to run out of air.

 

With that said, the story was lacking in a lot of places. I found myself falling asleep in parts because the story just wasn’t that compelling. For example, there was that part in the film where she spent damn near ten minutes just floating in space breathing heavy. I was saying to myself “Ok, just get on with it already”. Then we have the parts where she is just floating around in the space station. Then there was the part where…Oh wait, I must have slept through that part. You get the point!

 

Overall, this film had great visuals with A-List actors but that doesn’t account for the fact that this was just an overall boring story and completely dragged out a story that could have been told in 15 minutes instead of an hour and a half. I loved the visual quality of this film and that alone may have been the only thing to actually save this disaster of a story. Honestly, if you want to watch a movie about Astronauts in space, go get yourself a copy of Apollo 13 or Armageddon instead. Gravity didn’t even come close. This movie gets 2 out of 5 handclaps and would have scored 1 had it not been for the awesome visuals. I swear, I don’t understand how a movie like this won an oscar…

 

And by handclaps, I mean golf claps. I couldn’t really full on clap for this film.