Unbelievable visuals but not much of a storyline

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2013)

This movie was riveting in many ways: the visuals are truly unbelievable. Your stomach churns right along with the title characters and you might find your hands reaching up from the darkness of the theater to grab hold of all those bars and hatches Bullock and Clooney spend a lot of time trying to grab as they spin wildly through space.
But let's face it, the script is really weak. If it weren't in 3D and we weren't 200 miles above the Earth, there'd be absolutely no reason to take the slightest interest in these people. Only one question drives the entire film: will they or won't they make it? And since they're pretty much random people (albeit really bad-ass pilots and expert grabbers of things flying through space it turns out) the only way to produce the slightest spectator interest is to stage the space equivalent of "the car chase": (debris fly by at rip-you-to-bits speeds and tethers snap off at the worst possible moment).
It makes for a roller coaster evening, and for a linear, one track impressively visual film with lots of little "gotcha's!" but no real surprises. If that's what you're looking for, it's a great great film. It's very entertaining. It'll take your mind off work and make you wonder if a couple of things are scientifically possible. If you're wanting a three dimensional fictional universe instead of 3D images, see Moon (2009) on netflix.