Movie Review: Gravity

Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Alfonso Cuaron
This review is hard to write, because Gravity is a unique movie. On one hand, the visuals were amazing - it really felt like the characters were in space. On the other, the characters aren't really developed at all, save for a few facts thrown here and there, and I wanted more character development. It wasn't really my kind of movie but if you see movies for the special effects and not the plot/characters, you'll be dazzled by it.

Astronauts Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) are working on their ship when their mission is aborted and they're told to head back to their ship right away: the Russians have fired a missile into their own satellite, and debris from the attack is heading straight towards them at a rate of 10,000 miles per hour. They end up being too slow, and debris hits their ship; when they get back to the ship, they find the other astronaut who was outside of the ship, plus the rest of the crew, dead. Matt is the "driver," the more experienced of the two, and Ryan is the scientist; Matt quickly takes control and makes a plan of action. They're running out of oxygen, however, and they have to get to the International Space Station to even have a chance of surviving, and being able to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

First off, don't see this movie if you're claustrophobic. NASA will probably frown on this film because it will deter everyone from going into space, if the depictions are accurate, which they seemed to be. At one point, Stone (Bullock) bounces away from the ship and Kowalsky (Clooney) has to go retrieve her; she, understandably, starts to panic, since she's spinning around with nothing she can latch on to. They start to monitor their oxygen levels, as well, and they're both down to 2% or less when they're trying to reach the ISS.

Maybe see this film. I'm giving it a 3.5/5 star rating, which is unusual paired with a Maybe. The reasoning is that although it wasn't really my cup of tea, the acting was still great, and the special effects were fantastic, so others may like this movie; as for myself, though, I wanted to get more of a backstory. We do learn that Ryan had a child who died when she was young, and Matt likes to make chitchat and tell everyone, including Houston, all of his stories, but besides that, we don't get much more. Clooney and Bullock had good chemistry but I think anyone could have played these roles, although Clooney in particular was believable as the astronaut veteran.

Gravity is out today, October 4th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 90 minutes. 3.5 stars out of 5.

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