This is what Gravity should have been

Rating: 8/10 (19 January 2016)

Ridely Scott is back in his masterful elements in this movie, recalling what what made Alien and Blade runner so great, but was not great in Prometheus , and that is captivating and exciting story. How exciting do you think it would be to watch 2 hour 40 mins of a man stranded on Mars? Not very exciting. In gravity we had to watch Sandra bullock bounce around for 1 hours 20 min, which is exactly half of the Martian running time, and it is Martian which felt faster and shorter.
The key is the brilliant screenplay of this movie that always keeps the story interesting. When our man(Mat Damon) gets mistaken for dead and left stranded on the red planet by his team. He must use scientific knowledge, training and acumen to survive. This is actually far closer to real science, not your Star Trek "warp-core- manifold" variety. He has to use whatever is at his disposal to grow his own food, produce water and to find ingenious way of calling home. To watch him come up with one ingenious idea after the other is a treat to watch and never too unrealistic, as we repeatedly learn he is good at what he does.
Technically, this is a flawless production cinematography, VFX, sound, production design all work. The VFX are seamless and do not draw attention to themselves, making it look as if they really shot the movie on location -- on Mars!
This is a Matt Damon vehicle all the way, supported by an competent supporting class, but their characters barely get the screen time to grow. But that is OK, because Matt Damon is so brilliant and deserves an Oscar for making his lonely stay on Mars so entertaining for the viewer.