Not what it is hyped up to be

Rating: 5/10 (10 June 2014)

Is it beautiful? Yes. Is the sound incredible? Absolutely. Is it scientifically accurate? ... Sort of. At least in parts. Is it a good movie? Meh.
Sandra Bullock's character is the most unbelievable of characters. She is in space, meaning NASA cleared her to be there and yet she has no idea how to do anything. Her knowledge, or lack there of, is so limited that I would wager that the audience could have handled themselves better in her situation. I think it really hit home during the fire scene. Why... oh why wouldn't you vent the oxygen? hell, seal that pod off and let it die out. Anything would have been smarter than panicking and trying to put it out like it's an apartment fire. She even forgets Newton's laws... and she is an astronaut, remember? What an idiot. Pretty sure every space agency has a detailed procedure for fires. Not in the Gravity universe though, nope we just rely on fire extinguishers and frail, untrained, astronauts.
Let's not mention the space cowboy played by Clooney and his hair-brained idea of physics. He didn't have to die at all, though I can't say I am upset that he did. Both he and Bullock were stationary and shared the same orbital velocity, there was no reason for his weight to add any stress to Bullock nor for Bullock to go flying off in response to some unknown magical force. That whole scene made zero sense.
I won't even go into detail on why they couldn't have gotten to the Hubble nor the Chinese space station. No amount of fuel that they could have possibly attained could get them to either of those from the ISS. A quick Google search for "problems with Gravity the movie" will bring you all the info you need. I won't bother with this because, to me, I can suspend disbelief enough for that, if it were the only stretch...
OK so beyond stupid characters, gaping plot holes, and inability to suspend disbelief, we have to deal with the fact that the theme of the movie is cliché' and worse, it is delivered in a terribly boring, albeit beautiful, way. This movie was incredibly repetitive and practically beat you over the head with it's constant "birth" imagery. The scene with Ryan in the fetal position floating in her "womb," complete with an umbilical cord, made me literally laugh out loud. Subtlety was, apparently, not the goal here. We get it, will to survive, rebirth, parallels to biological equivalents, blah blah blah. It is still an overdone theme displayed in an uncreative, boring way. Let's not forget the religious undertones; had to throw those in, didn't we? Garbage. None of it was original and none of it was even displayed in an original manner.
In short, what Hollywood and critics have deemed to be the greatest Sci-Fi epic of our time is, to me, the biggest bore in the genre since Clooney's Solaris. Watch it for the visual feast, it is gorgeous, watch it for the amazing sound editing and score- they're phenomenal! Watch it for the realistic display of many physics concepts... sometimes... but don't watch it if you want to see an entertaining, thought-provoking, Sci-Fi film. It isn't any of that.