Pulled into the void

Rating: 3/10 (12 March 2014)

Sure, with 100 million dollars at your disposal, there is a high chance you'll succeed in pulling off some spectacular visual effects. I'll also acknowledge the director's effort to add a few aesthetic camera shots here and there: For instance, the opening shot or the brief switching to 1st person view presented a neat treat. But these are so sparsely built on that they are but mere traces of what could have been actually innovative to cinematography.
It is the tragedy of this film that it has no tragedy you can relate to, meaning that even for Hollywood standards the plot is so shallow that it hurt my brain. Character development is constrained to a few minutes that won't go beyond "Never give up" and "Get over your losses" which resembles philosophical levels similar to those of any random afternoon cartoon show targeted at preschool kids. The most embarrassing moment could be perceived when the Bullock character, out of the blue, displays some religious remorse (someting like "I don't know how to pray") obviously indicating nothing but a pathetic attempt to please religious fanatics in the audience. If the Bullock character gets 'grounded' to anything other than gravity, it's to trivial truisms so commonplace that they are painful to discern.
We get to know little to nothing about the Clooney character - let alone its development - making both him and his corresponding actor entirely interchangeable. And would it have been too much to ask as to what actually caused all the problems the protagonists are facing? Due to the incredibly shallow plot I waited throughout the whole movie for an explanation going beyond that of a mysteriously "misguided rocket".
In conclusion, anyone watching this movie with an intellect surpassing that of a 5-year-old may attain just about the same dramatic experience by watching its trailer on a continuous loop.