Some Sci-Fi, Some Action, Some Drama, Average Script, Average Acting = about a 7/10

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2013)

I like sci-fi, do you? then you may likeee this movie
*but* it's no documentary (i.e. don't expect to learn anything new or cool that you didn't already know or assume). Double I.E. - whatever you've ever hoped to be portrayed in floating-in-space movies you've already seen in movies like Apollo 13 and Armageddon.
I like action, do you? well, this movie has some, i.e. a little, like 4/10 worth quantity-wise, but it's like 8/10 largely due to the nice visuals, animation-graphics/cgi/rotoscoping/whatever-you-call-it. If you like to play video games like me you may like the occasional moments of being suspended in space and wondering which buttons one might push to reorient yourself, while avoiding debris at the same time.
I like drama, do you? this movie could just barely qualify for drama, though it's no save-the-world Armageddon, or Downtown Abbey, or whatever you please. I did tear up in parts near the end, but i do that moreso than most others do generally anyways, i presume. I tear up too when the trumpets blow during starting-television coverage of breakfast at Wimbledon each year, if you know what i mean.
What fails most about this movie is the blatant use of two of the worst and most-gratuitously used emotional tugs of all time, the same-old never-ending cliché' oft-used in movies about "Ditzy girl gets chased, falls down, shoe comes off (or heel breaks)', barely makes it out" routine, and the man needlessly sacrifices self for woman routine. I found myself angry at the film about 5 to 10 minutes in when i realized that that was the direction they were taking it with the S.Bullock character. And then i more or less had to give-up completely on the reality-aspect and emotionally-involved aspects of the film with the purposefully and needlessly gratuitous hangin'-by-a-thread/throw-me-a- line use-of-death routine. (Literally). I have no problem with total carnage, ala Saving Private Ryan, or everyone lives, ala The Lord of The Rings, but gratuitous use of men stepping on grenades so that some ditz- girl can go the distance is bound to turn off much of the population, both male and female.
Like i said in the subject line, about a 7/10. IMDb says budget was 100mil - i guess i can see that, and you can too just by looking at the long list of animators used on this film on IMDb's credit-page for this movie. I'm glad i saw it; i wouldn't say it wasn't worth the money, as it at-least adds to the cannon of sci-fi movies i've seen over the years, but i doubt it rises to the level of water-cooler talk that a Apollo-13 did, nor should it. I suppose it's OK, in-a-way, to see a director or script-writer try to make a minimalist movie that largely revolves around 2 characters, as that tactic is seldom used, and for that the director could receive some credit, however, if he'd wanted to, he could have elongated the introduction and the conclusion just a bit, though what he had worked in a get-to-the-point and let-the-viewers'- imagination-decides-what-happens-next sort of ways. I can't really comment too much on the acting, since these are your typical, typecast, big-budget actors doing big-budget roles, and sadly, they seemingly took stereotypical scripts that involved the aforesaid helpless-girl/chivalrous-guy routines.
Don't expect to learn anything, but be impressed with the visuals, much like you might for a Transformers, or really any modern movie that now uses cool-unknown effects from the minds of all sorts of background contributing artists. Whoever is responsible for some of the scenes and/or camera work involving the destructive-chaos and debris-mayhem, what with the dangerous fly-bys and rotating camera views, deserves some props for viewing-angle-choreography.
Last word, i almost forgot... yeah i partly went to see if because i was wondering if it was at all based on reality, which it is obviously not. There's no Apollo 13, true-to-life history to be had here. It's all fiction. And lastly, there were a couple brief shots of S.Bullock trying to make her look like the Tomb Raider girl (if you know what i mean), albeit in an A Space Odyssey fetalesqe position, it's just too bad they had to use a B-rated, KeanuReevesish/MatthewMacConaughy type actress to do it. I would of rather wished she either puked or crapped her pants at some point, or just gone all-out hysterical, as no doubt many of us would, or at least let out some primal-scream of victory at the end, not the emotional mediocrity we were given. Washed-up-on-the- beach yes, but Lost it is not.
Oh, and also (last last word), the other reason you may decide to see it is because of the title character, Clooney. i admit his bearded-pieces in recent years have given me more hope that he, too, may rise from B- actor, kevin-costner-like movie-qualities, even though his bearded characters still had a one-dimensional, or overly violent quality to them. Sadly, it seems he has taken a minor step back in this role, though due partly to the script/script-choice, as his character is whittled down from main-draw marketing, to passe'-narrator, repeating for 1/2 an hour what we were all already thinking (relax, breathe, calm- down, relax, calm-down, breathe, relax, breathe, calm-down, etc. etc.).