Great potential ruined by poor script

Rating: 4/10 (16 October 2013)

Walking into Gravity last night, I was expecting a deep, scientific, philosophical masterpiece of a film. That's what all the critics were saying. To say I was disappointed is a grave understatement. This movie had the potential to be great, but the script in particular ruined it.
The first thing that stands out to me is the lack of characterization. Apart from the short conversation about Ryan's family in the beginning, we are given no insight about the characters lives on earth. Did Matt have a family? Did Ryan have any close friends? We'll never know. The lack of characterization made me neutral about the characters, and that neutral quickly turned to negative for Ryan after five minutes of her panting and wheezing and wasting her oxygen like a goofball. Matt, however, wasn't so bad. I stayed neutral with him. George Clooney gave a solid performance for him.
Another thing that bothers me about this movie is the number of scientific inaccuracies. I can understand if you get five or six subtle, small scientific facts wrong, but in this movie, they got a few major scientific facts wrong. For example, satellites don't orbit at the same altitude; so therefore, one satellite exploding wouldn't cause a chain reaction. Another example is the fact that you wouldn't see satellite debris flying at hypersonic speeds coming right at you.
This film also has a lack of realism. When Ryan is adrift in space, and only has about six percent left in her oxygen tank, why is she panicking and breathing so rapidly? Surely she would've been taught ways to calm herself and slow down her breathing. *SPOILER When Matt is right on deaths door, he makes witty remarks. Nobody on this planet would be so laid back and calm staring right into the face of that horrible death. *SPOILER OVER. Also, when Matt was goofing off and wasting his engine flying around while Ryan fixed the satellite, you know NASA wouldn't tolerate such an obscenity. And the fact that Ryan's in space after only six months of training. Those are just a couple examples but there are much, much more.
The main thing that takes away from this movie is the incredibly thin and cliché script. The characters literally spoon feed you the theme of this film: "Don't give up, keep pushing" through their dialogue. The scenes in this movie are incredibly simple, they try to go from point a too point b without going into any extra detail about the characters, the events, etc. For example, why did Russia launch that missile? It's almost as if a high school student woke up one day and said "Let's haphazardly write a space movie!"
To give credit where credit is due, the special effects and CGI were breathtaking. It's a shame it was wasted on such a mediocre movie. Unfortunately, special effects cannot carry a film, and you get used to it after about 10 minutes of staring at earth in the background.
Overall, this movie is pretty mediocre. Poor script, annoying characters, a lack of realism, and scientific inaccuracies. The only good thing about this film was the special effects and CGI. It had so much potential that was unfortunately butchered by a simple, thin script. 4/10