Gravity (2013)

Gravity (PG-13) - Review

"In Space no one can hear you squeam"

On a mission to repair the Hubble Space telescope, dashing veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and civilian medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) must overcome the dangers of the laws of physics in the vaccum of space as they try to survive a collision with space debris and must cling to each other for support as they freefall hundreds of miles above the planet.

Director Alfonso Cuaron (who also directed the superbly crafted Children of Men) revels in the 3D medium, producing his trademarked lengthy shots that zoom in and out of the scenes as the characters attempt to cling to their lives high above mother Earth.  The acting is obviously upper echelon, though this is a role that Clooney can and does float through without batting a baby blue.  Bullock's Ryan is the vulnerable one here, she is barely trained and has emotional baggage stemming from the death of her only child.  However, in a nod to a genuine staple of Sci-Fi heroinism, she takes little time in stripping to her underwear and bettering her male peers as she returns to the womb of weightlessness.  This is her story, a fantastic yet mostly realistic horror-in-space tale that will leave you reeling again and again as she spins, drops, floats, flails and burns her way forward in an attempt to escape.  Hopefully your sense of vertigo is up to the task of watching.

The pace is one of the best to be seen on the silver screen, the swelling of soundtrack music often standing in for the lack of sound effects that are the mark of the attempt of true science fiction.  However, it must be said that Gravity features as much (if not more) CGI than Life of Pi, and like that film about a character surviving in an inhospitable environment with only themselves to depend on, it fills the frame with the uncanny valley, that sensation that nothing you are seeing is quite real.  The astronauts look to be mere floating faces on computer generated bodies, going about their tasks while the materials and animations of their suits never look quite solidified and real.  The telescopic 3D use is excellent, but also highlights the overall fad of the medium.  Cuaron has fashioned a wonderfully crowd pleasing treat and the 3D is so well used it mostly fades into the background and brings you, in a darkened theater where it is most effective, closer to the danger.  Yet how many great artists have been able to do that, and how many have the talent or the ability to make the next (or have made one that compares to) Gravity?  In the many years of 3D film making there have not been any, and doubtless few more as home/mobile media continues to overtake the theatrical market.

The plot sometimes careens into the obvious, but that's ok as snappy references to Dark Star twang by and Sandra scrambles on another space platform fraught with peril.  Its the best constantly on the edge of your seat SciFi film since The Abyss and the best film about space survival since Apollo 13 or 2001 A Space Odyssey.  There no overt political agendas or themes to be had here, just pure high altitude entertainment with a pleasantly adroit message of "it's not enough just to survive, you have to live".  That's something us Terrans can always hear more of.

8.5 Dreamy Clooneys out of 10 (GREAT)