Gravity is Powerful Visually and Psychologically

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2013)

Having now seen the movie, I can say my assumptions were correct: the marketing of the movie was very poor. In fact, I got much better insight to what to expect from Jon Stewart's gushing interview with Sandra Bullock on the Daily Show. (He wasn't exaggerating.)
Gravity is visually stunning and exciting. Think "2001" but at the pace of, say, "Die Hard" or "Aliens". But this is not a sci-fi movie. This is a character study and a psychological mind trip. Two hours with only two characters on screen. You get to know them, intimately. The masterwork aspect of the movie is that you don't get bored.
Gravity is also not an art-for-art's sake movie. While it is built from the ground up to fully exploit 3-D, the strength of the movie is the characters, and the fact that you are sucked in and deeply invested in them - particularly Bullock. I know I tend to overuse analogies, so I apologize. But the idea that came to my mind to set my fellow movie go-er's expectations was: imagine Vince Gilligan directing Castaway, in space, with the pacing of "Need for Speed". The intensity and tension of a Breaking Bad episode applied to a different genre.
Go see it. In 3-D. See if you don't agree.
(Leave the little ones home, though. There is a little too much scary, intense bad stuff happening.)