GRAVITY (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013) **1/2

Rating: 5/10 (21 February 2014)

I really cannot understand the gushing reviews this has been getting and the accolades being constantly bestowed upon it: there is really nothing outstanding, or even new, about it – period! Much has been said about its excellent visual effects – but the same is true of countless other sci-fi efforts, so, no big deal there! Similarly, it was acclaimed as a tension-filled two-parter set against a forbidding backdrop: well, this type of film has been done – and much more engagingly, if you ask me – for years...take John Boorman's HELL IN THE PACIFIC (1968), for one! As space operas go, then, its unabashed references to the likes of PLANET OF THE APES, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (both 1968) and ALIEN (1979) only serve to expose its essential dramatic (and artistic) shallowness – enough said! And, frankly, the decision to cast stars (annoying Sandra Bullock and narcissistic George Clooney – yeah right, I totally buy them as astronautswhich goes to show that very little has changed from the practices redolent during the old studio system, where they used to cast Caucasian actors as all sorts of ethnic types) in what clearly amounts to character roles is ample proof that the producers themselves did not have enough faith that the premise would sell itself!
Thankfully, the intrinsic streamlining also extends to the film's running-time, so we do not get any tear-jerking flashbacks to Bullock's tragic past on Earth; even so, her assumption that she does not know how to pray is as clichéd as they come! Anyway, the narrative is taken up by scientific jargon (which we have all been suffering from these last 50 years or so), panic attacks (contact with Base is invariably lost early on: incidentally, Ed Harris has been typecast as the voice of Houston ever since APOLLO 13 {1995}!), floating all too easily between various space stations (most of them conveniently unworkable – being peopled by corpses, boasting non-English friendly equipment, oddly self-combustible or simply meteorite targets)! As for its visually arresting 'silent' sequences of the extensive shuttle damage, again, this is no novelty (Michelangelo Antonioni did something similar a good 45 years ago with ZABRISKIE POINT!) and, in any case, it eventually wears thin with the repetition! And is it not a downright cheat to have Bullock fantasize about Clooney 'bailing her out' when all hope seemed lost (by the way, his lengthy conversations with the heroine in an attempt to reassure and guide her, while he is himself headed for certain death, come off as comical more than anything else)?!
One might argue that I have said very little in the movie's favour to justify even its "average" rating: this alone speaks volumes about the way modern cinema generally leaves me cold – with very few titles made in the recent past that I deem worthy of more than a cursory glance...!