I had great hopes but was disappointed

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2013)

I had been looking forward to seeing this film, but was highly disappointed when I finally got to. But first, the good stuff:
I really did like the special effects. I watched it in IMAX 3D and it was awesome to see. I would have given it a 10 star rating if the SFX were all I was grading it on. And the premise was solid.
Unfortunately, there were just too many weaknesses. First of all, the movie seemed to start in the middle. Where was the build up? Where was the back story. I'll admit that I don't like movies that are too heavy on character development, but I do need a little. I need to feel as though I know who these people are. I didn't. And the lame attempt to fill in the back story during the long, boring trek from one space station to another didn't do the trick. It was like an afterthought.
And I can live with a little bit of scientific inaccuracy in order to help out a plot line, but this movie didn't seem to research the science at all. A critical point in the film comes when George Clooney's character untethers himself from Sandra Bullock's character in order to save her from flying off into space, as he did after he let go. But what force was there pushing him into space. His initial momentum was stopped when Bullock caught him. At that point, he should have been freely floating adjacent to the space station. The only thing that could have caused him to fly off into space was angular momentum if the space station had been rotating, but it didn't seem to be because the earth was always on the same side. Also, all the spacecraft shown in the film seemed to be in the same orbit. They are not in reality. They would have been orbiting at much different velocities. In addition, the space junk, having come from a different orbit, would have been traveling much faster than the film showed. There's more, but you get the idea.
That, in addition to the whole idea that Bullock's character could actually have been saved in the manner depicted is just too hard to swallow. Bottom line: The film was tedious in places, boring in places, and outright unbelievable in places. I'm surprised the critics didn't pick up on any of that. Maybe they were just all struck by the great special effects and gave it a pass on the other stuff.