Great Special Effects - Terrible Movie

Rating: 3/10 (19 October 2013)

I was impressed by the movie's special effects, but the plot itself left much to be desired. If you know nothing of space flight, maybe you will enjoy this movie. If you do, the movie will be an exercise in pain. Long odds situations, and oversimplifications abounds. From the first 10 minutes of the movie in which George Clooney spends his time just circling around the space shuttle, to somehow, a missile which destroyed a Russian satellite creating some sort of domino effect on all other satellites causing a resultant ejection of space debris, and a loss of all communications with the earth. Just horrible. George Clooney un-tethers himself from Sandra Bullock after he pulls himself towards her to result in slack in the tether. If there is slack in the tether, he is no longer pulling away from her and therefore there is no reason to release himself from her. Also, although Sandra Bullock is a mission specialist who would not be trained to fly even the space shuttle, she ends up flying not only a Russian Soyuz, but also a Chinese ship. Thank God all of the "instruction books" were written in English. The more I think about it, the more terrible I think this movie was.