A Brave Film: Visuals Don't Support The Story - The Story Supports The Visuals

Rating: 9/10 (16 February 2014)

This is my first movie review - I'll make it as UN-SPOILED, and as to-the-point as possible (for now). Story: A deliberately simple and rather common tale. Visuals: The spectacular heart of the film, as all images in film are supposed to do.
OK, here it goes. The Gravity is a 2013 drama/thriller film, set in Outer Space just above the Earth. Sandra Bullock plays our heroine, Dr. Ryan Stone, and George Clooney plays Astronaut Mathew Kowalski in a supporting role. These two characters are part of a job in orbit to fix the Hubble Telescope (I believe that is what they were doing). Then suddenly, they receive a warning from Huston (Ed Harries' voice) that they are in mortal danger. Less than no-time later, a shattered Russian space (station or telescope), blown into a million tiny deadly pieces, hurls itself at them in an orbit of immense disaster. Stone's and Kowalski's space shuttle is destroyed, and they are the soul survivors of the cataclysmic event. The movie details their physical and emotional determination to get back to earth before the debris field circles the earth again and kills them directly.
To put it pretty bluntly, all types of people, of different cultures and genre-tastes, will see this film, at some point, and come away away with varying good and/or bad emotions, evoked... and regarding that, this is my opinion of the film:
The story, while honest and uncynical, is simplistic, and even facile - on the surface. The characters, while endearing, are distant and internal - on the surface as well; Everything a viewer who was bred on over-critiquing of films would say (me). At first, when I saw this film I thought it was kind of like Jurassic Park all over again: A movie where the special effects take center stage because the creative story and characters don't transcend as well on screen. Because I have come to think that a good MOVIE means that the visuals are there to support the story... But I was wrong.
In terms of A film, the visuals are Everything. Without visuals, the story and characters will not resonate. In a worst-success scenario, you can have a dreadful, hopeless story with sadistic characters that is a masterpiece of a film due to the visuals and direction that complement it. Or you could have THIS - Gravity is an example of a director (Alfonso Curon) who makes a movie that has unparalleled visuals: the earth, the stars, astronauts tumbling through space in complete zero-G realism - surrounded by story and characters so simple and bare-bones honest it makes you suspicious of what the main goal of making the film is. A story can be deceitful, as can the characters to - can seduce an audience into thinking about "messages" for what their worth. Very rarely do Visuals seduce an audience into thinking the plot presented is their to celebrate the visuals - which are the real Truth in this film.
I realize this is a lot, but movies have no absolute point due to their nature of relying on viewers emotions and opinions. (That's partly why I'll give all films a 9 or lower). Every film is different, and filmmakers have varying degrees of success in conveying emotions. For me, Gravity is a spectacular achievement in visuals effects Art, and the emotionally worthy story of two astronauts adrift in space together (along with great acting from our two main leads) are their to complete the overall Experience of this 90-minute Painting.
You may love it, hate it, be thrilled, or simply bored by GRAVITY. Only if you watch this film with unreasonable expectations will you forget its lasting cinematic worth. I loved it. My football-loving family? Not so much.