DVD review: Gravity

Movie review gravity Gravity is a 2013 British-American 3D sciene fiction suspense film.

It was directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón, and stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts involved in the mid-orbit destruction of a space shuttle and their attempt to return to Earth.

In the first five minutes of Gravity I decided I was going to be bored out of my mind. I was very, very wrong.

The only way to describe how good this film is, is to say that if one actor can hold your attention for 90 minutes, they must be doing something right. Sandra Bullock did just that.

I found myself holding my breath, my heart racing as I panicked, and yelling at the TV while Bullock took her sweet time while time was running out.

The film opens with Dr Ryan Stone (Bullock)on her first space shuttle mission aboard the space shuttle Explorer, accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney).

During a spacewalk, Mission Control warns the group of a missile strike on a defunct satellite, which has causes a chain reaction forming a cloud of debris, which is heading their way. They are ordered to abort the mission and for the shuttle to begin re-entry immediately.

After the debris hits, Dr Stone becomes detached and is adrift in space, with a limited supply of oxygen. With some kind of space magic that isn’t explained to simple minded audience members like myself, Kowalski, calm as day, finds her and they make their way to the International Space Station. Then he dies.

For the rest of the film it’s Dr Stone and her thoughts, and somehow they manage to inflict enough bad luck on her that you find yourself feeling terribly sorry for her as well as completely frustrated by her actions, because we all think we’d do better put in that same situation.

A good way to describe how effectively they portray the suspense, pain and emotion with just one character is to compare Sandra Bullock to Tom Hanks in Castaway, except there’s no Wilson.

Tom Hanks managed to create enough drama and emotion by himself with the only other character being that damn island, and you end up hating space and everything it does to poor Sandra Bullock just like you ended up hating that island and the sea because of how it treated Tom Hanks.

It’s a great film, and I can see why there was so much fuss about it.

I find it hard to take Sandra Bullock seriously because I think she’s such a fantastic comedic actress, so I am glad I got to enjoy her in a completely different element. If you didn’t see it at the theatre, hire it next weekend or download it for your next night it.

Score: 4.5/5