Brush aside it's unrealistic flaws for an enjoyable watch

Rating: 6/10 (20 December 2015)

OK, so this film has flaws. Quite a few. Does this ruin the movie? No.
The opening sequence is visually stunning and although others reviewers have commented negatively toward Matt Kowalski's (George Clooney) pointless anecdotes as he thrusts needlessly around space during the task at hand, I actually felt it set up his character quite well as the over confident alpha male. Then a message comes through which (and I'm paraphrasing) tells them to abort... things are about to get crazy.
And it does... Go crazy that is. Debris from another structure is hurtling towards them and after a few near misses Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) gets knocked off and begins drifting into space until she loses visual on the the others while spinning uncontrollably. This event is truly intense. I'm not sure how much credit for that is down to the movies production and how much is just my own conscious thoughts of what that would be like. Either way, I was gripped. Sometimes when watching a movie and things go wrong, it's hard to get past the *of course she'll be OK, she's the main character* feeling we all get, but in-spite of this, I was watching wide-eyed at the screen with no clue as to what would happen.
Then Kowalski appears from nowhere, tethers her, and like an unwilling dog on a rainy day she get pulled around by Kowalski as they make there way to the shuttle. In my opinion, this is where the flaws begin...
They get back to their shuttle/ship/station to find that everyone else is dead. Am I supposed to care? We've never seen this crew and I have no emotional connection to them. Maybe more time should have been used at the beginning to set the scene. To have us learn about these characters and possibly even witness their fate. Without it, unfortunately they are just props. just an addition to all the other floating debris out there.
As they make their way to another station for rescue I start to wonder about the character development even more. It's obvious from her actions and dialogue that Stone is emotionally damaged as well as being under-trained. I do not believe that she would have been given this mission. The training for NASA are famously gruelling, testing your mental and physical strength. Stone currently lacks all of this. We also witness Kowalski trying to calm her nerves asking questions about her life. Surely they'd have been in each others pockets throughout the training and the mission itself and he doesn't know any of this?
I don't want to spoil too much but the movie then basically goes from one obstacle to another as Stone tries to overcome her own demons as well as find rescue. Sometimes repetitive but I do care for her survival.
Is this film believable? No. But it's definitely enjoyable. It's no Apollo 13 but then maybe it wasn't trying to be.