Gravity

Gravity relies heavily on CG, green scenes and copious use of NASA space shots. Sandra Bullock, as Dr. Ryan Stone, and George Clooney, as Matt Kowalsky, are encased in their space suits for most of the movie while floating in space. These two super stars have almost no physical contact, which is a unique approach for this movie.

This is a story of survival. The American astronauts are repairing the Hubble Telescope when they are bombarded with space debris from a shattered Russian satellite destroying the space shuttle and hurling them untethered into space. The roles of Clooney and Bullock imply sexism. In the face of catastrophic failure Clooney’s character is calm, soft spoken and knows what every knob and flashing light mean.  Bullock’s Dr. Ryan is panicking and tumbling out of control physically and mentally. I believe our female astronauts have more of the right stuff than Dr. Ryan.

 What makes this movie different from other classic space movies such as 2001 Space Odyssey, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 is the majority of the action occurs outside of the space ship. Bullock and Clooney are literally marooned in space. The shots of Earth are stunning. The movie’s visual impact alone is justification to see it. I begrudgingly admit 3D works here.

Bullock has the main role. This is probably the greatest range of emotion she has displayed in a movie to date. She goes from very scared to being very very really scared. This was a physically challenging role for the actors since for the majority of the movie they were suspended with wires off the ground.

There were two other actors. An Indian astronaut who bought the farm in the very beginning of the film (I saw that coming). Also Ed Harris, who played John Glenn in the Right Stuff, is the voice of Houston Mission Control (he never appears on screen). Ironically a real astronaut is Earth bound.

For the most part the hardware and equipment looked authentic (yeah, like I would know), but there was one totally BS scene that belonged in a Looney Tunes cartoon rather than in this movie. It was a lazy way to solve a problem. Interestingly, the movie ran for only 90 minutes which bucks the new trend of three hour movies. I think there is only so much 3D tumbling an audience can take without getting motion sickness.

The movie is worthwhile seeing, I just do not buy into all the ballyhoo the movie has engendered. In Gravity acting is secondary to the green scene.