Movie Review: Gravity

When a medical engineer (Sandra Bullock) makes her first trip into space to install some equipment on the space station, a terrible disaster leaves her and her mission commander (George Clooney) stranded and free floating in orbit. Gravity was nominated for ten Oscars including Best Picture and won for seven of them. That's all well and good, but is this film just Oscar bait or is it a good time as well?
The Good

Two of the Oscars that went to Gravity this year include Best Achievement in Cinematography and Best Achievement in Directing. These are two well deserved awards! The director Alfonso Cuaron has a keen sense of how to communicate the disorientation that the characters must be feeling. Couple his vision with the cinematography that puts you directly in the action and on the edge of your seat and you have a very engaging film.

While the film only really has two actors, Clooney put in one of his best performances. He's not in as much of the film as I would have wished, but the fact that I was left wanting more of his character really says something.  Bullock, while not quite as interesting as Clooney here, was okay in her role and played the role of audience-proxy sufficiently. The problems I had with her character had nothing to do with Bullock's performance.

The Bad

While Gravity is heavy on suspense and stunning visuals, it lacks heart plain and simple. For instance, in Gravity, as in most disaster movies, Bullock's character is at a crossroads: she can lie down and die or she can fight for her life. As a viewer, its important for a film to convince you to root for the survival of the hero. The story usually provides some device to convince the hero that the battle must be won and that they should fight for survival with every last breath. Unfortunately, I didn't know enough about Bullock's character to care! The same goes for Clooney's character.

What Gravity really needed more than anything was an extra 30 minutes at the beginning of the film to give us some perspective. Who are these people? How did they get here? Why should we care about them? Sure, a couple lines of dialogue here and there tell us what we are supposed to know, but nothing makes us FEEL anything about them.

The Verdict

Gravity is a visual spectacle. It's direction and cinematography are envelope-pushing at its finest. That being said, the breakneck pace left little room for character development and therefore I walked away wondering why I should care.