Gravity: Movie Review

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Director Alfonso Cuarón (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Children of Men) has proven himself in the past as a director with vision, but nothing he has done could have prepared me for what the acclaimed filmmaker created with “Gravity”.  When people mention modern classics, for me titles like “E.T.” and  “JAWS” come to mind.  Well, I going to say that “Gravity” fits in the nicely with those groundbreaking blockbusters.  This astonishing film could very well make Cuarón the next “it” filmmaker.  I have never seen anything like “Gravity” and Warner Brothers deciding to release it in October, rather than Summer, was a brilliant move.  It would have been awful if “Gravity” was crushed by the superheroes and sequels.

Sandra Bullock plays engineer Dr. Ryan Stone, who is on her first space mission, after having only six months of training.  Along on the mission is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), who is on his final mission.  While working on repairs on the outside of the space shuttle, Ryan and Matt get an alert from NASA that the Russians shot a missile at one of their own satellites, which caused a shower of debris that is orbiting the Earth at rapid speed.  The debris takes out each satellite is passes and creates even more debris.  Before the two can get back into the shuttle, the debris not only causes massive damage to the ship, but it also causes Ryan to  tumble off into space. 

Of course Ryan isn’t going to die that quickly, or the movie would be over.  Once Matt is able to locate Ryan, the two must find a way to get to safety. 

“Gravity” is brisk and exciting.  The best moments come each time the debris comes back around. Ryan is ether trying to repair something or just hold on to whatever she can and not get hit.  This is also a film that uses 3D in the right way.  Actually, not seeing this on the biggest screen you can and in 3D would be cheating yourself out of the complete experience this film offer.  “Gravity” is like a ride, but I don’t want to cheapen the level of filmmaking here with that statement.  This is definitely an Academy-Award worthy film.

Throughout “Gravity” I kept wondering how they pulled off so much of what was going on.  Bullock, who admittedly I am not the biggest fan of, does an amazing job here. It can’t be easy acting while floating.  She is floating through more than 90% of her screen time.  Clooney is fine, but he is basically just being Clooney.  Bullock is the one doing the heavy lifting in “Gravity”.

“Gravity” is the best cinematic experience of 2013 so far and it is a film that is not to be missed on the big screen.  On a side note, fans of Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” will recognize a familiar voice as mission control in “Gravity”.

By: Marc Ferman

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