The GRAVITY Of This Outer Space Situation

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2013)

Probably about as original and realistic a film as one could be that is set in the vastness of space, even if it is just above the Earth's atmosphere, that Hollywood has made after films like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, MAROONED, and APOLLO 13, films that it resembles quite strikingly at times, GRAVITY stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts doing a routine repair job on the Hubble Space Telescope who find themselves in the middle of a crisis when a huge debris field, created by the accidental missile hit on a Russian satellite, destroys both the space shuttle and the telescope itself, and the remaining shuttle crew. The horrifying incident leaves the two of them stranded some 300 miles above the Earth's surface, with only their spacesuits for protection against the airless and soundless vacuum of the void.
Clooney sacrifices himself in order to get Bullock into the remaining Soyuz escape pod still attached to the heavily damaged International Space Station; but again, many further complications arise. Only after a hair-raising, eye-popping dilemma does Bullock get into the pod and head for the nearby Chinese space station, which itself has suffered tremendous damage. Bullock, understandably in a huge panic, has only a limited amount of time before she gets into the Chinese escape pod and survives the intense heat of re-entry, not to mention another debris field created by the Chinese space station as it re-enters the atmosphere.
Whether seen in the regular wide screen format, in 3-D, or in the specialized IMAX 3-D (where it would share a further comparison with the 1987 IMAX documentary about the space shuttle program, THE DREAM IS ALIVE), GRAVITY succeeds as great science fiction; and while it is at times overwhelmed with the 3-D process and the avalanche of special CGI effects (though the budget stayed at $80 million), the effects don't overshadow the storyline or the characters, which is a marked and refreshing contrast from most Hollywood big-budget spectacles of the 21st century. What is perhaps most remarkable about GRAVITY is that it was a Mexican-born filmmaker, Alfonso Cuaron (who also directed 2001's Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, and 2004's HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN), who both directed and co-wrote it (along with his son Jonas). Even with all the ultra-high tech bells and whistles at his disposal, Cuaron in general has made a film that has a lot of the grace of "2001", the extreme tension of MAROONED, and the dogged realism of APOLLO 13, films that it can stand up to comparison quite well.
Most of the film's focus is on Bullock using her intelligence and hard-won courage to ensure her own survival, which had best been hinted at before in the 1994 action blockbuster SPEED. Even Clooney is on for only the first 40 minutes of this 90-minute saga; and Ed Harris, who portrayed NASA flight director Gene Kranz in APOLLO 13, is only credited with being the voice of Mission Control. In essence, GRAVITY is an outer space character study, and Bullock is the character in question; and she carries that role quite well. All of these things serve to make GRAVITY one of the best films of 2013.