OK but badly over-hyped

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2013)

The technical achievement of this film is very very good, but as Dr Kermode said (and I do not very often agree with him!)'it is a popcorn movie.' The plot is a peaceful US mission in orbit round the Earth to repair the Hubble telescope becomes imperilled by a dastardly Russian endeavour to destroy one of its evil satellites, which causes a hell of a lot of metal to go at superspeed destroying anything in its orbital path. The film is about the consequences on survivors, except for visuals of Earth from 600 kilometres up - you do not see the blackness of space very often. Thus we have an Indiana Jones-type set up of jeopardy situations occurring every ten minutes or so, which everyone except Sandra Bullock seems to succumb to in deadly graphic circumstances. There are obvious holes in the plot, eg the speed with which Ms Bullock can get out and in of a spacesuit in weightless conditions would leave Gypsy Rose Lee tut tutting; the number of times Ms Bullock's suit hits hard and sharp surfaces on the outside of spacecraft without one tear or snag is absolutely unbelievable; and her ability to read Chinese and Russian from books while piloting escape pods becomes very silly. The so-called profundity in the film is very shallow - when I got home I switched on a 'B' western from the fifties on TV with the well trodden plot of a handful of people surrounded by bloodthirsty Indians, no water and no obvious means of escape except their own ingenuity. Cue dialogue about living and dying - and 'Gravity' is on the same level. In fact, the dialogue was better in the western! The acting is restrained except for George Clooney's turn as comic relief cum sudden sacrificial hero in places. The effects are very good, but cannot really sustain the bare 91 minutes. The 3D is excellent, but did we have to wait a tedious two minutes or so as Ms Bullock's tears drain out into the audience! And as for the two big visual symbols - Ms Bullock curling into the foetal position during weightlessness and her crawling out of the primordial mud for rebirth - were unwanted and too obvious. Go and see it in 3D and wonder, and then watch a movie with a middle.