Film Review – Gravity
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Screenplay: Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris
Genre: Sci-fi drama
Rating: **
Venue: Ster Kinekor Maerua Mall Cine 4
Rating Score
* – Poor
** – Average
*** – Good
**** – Very Good
***** – Excellent
Hollywood’s most lovable sweethearts George Clooney and Sandra Bullock return to the big screen in Hollywood’s latest installment in Sci-fi drama, Gravity. The film tells the story of Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) who is in command of his last flight before retiring. Everything is perfect for the two until one day on a seemingly routine space walk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone stranded with nothing but each other and the darkness. I do not even know where to start on how bad this movie is. Despite its beautiful visuals, the black holes are larger than the Computer Generated Imagery. Overall the script is very weak, weightless and even worse, dumb. The Russians bomb their own satellite by mistake and the debris is flying around at bullet speed, smashing everything in its way. Somebody please scream: mayday mayday!, Houston we have a problem. Kowalski orders Stone to disengage from whatever she is repairing but Stone only has six months of training and fails to be responsive and then disaster strikes. Trust me it sounds like a good plot but really it isn’t. Then there is the whole manufactured sense of suspense. Stone gets anywhere near the Air Lock , the debris presents itself like on cue every single time she gets there. Next is a fire in a space station, then running out of Oxygen, and so many other catastrophes that left me exasperated and gasping for air because of all the suspense. But then I got back from space and realised that even all that drama could not shake off the feeling that I was watching something that was not factual. There is no doubt that Cuarón was able to make me and maybe other viewers claustrophobic as his shots are inside an orbiting capsule or in the vast darkness of space but still that was not enough to make me love the film To me movie lovers need a better reason to go watch a movie than having their favourite actors in the film. I am sorry to say but Gravity just does not have that ‘wow’ factor that young movie lovers expect every time we sit down to watch a movie or go to the cinema. Its not my kind of movie, I love thrillers and sci fi films but this one I am afraid to say left a bitter taste in my mouth and was an eye-sore to watch. It is torturous to watch, it is silly and ti is a little too far-fetched. Watching two of Hollywood’s best actors spiraling in space, Bullock in a fetal position, is one the most tedious things I had to do this week. Bullock has always managed to make every role she plays work no matter the character, but I am not sure Clooney can pull off Sci-fi. I don’t know maybe it is because most of the films I have seen him in are romantic comedies. Only the old will enjoy this and maybe fans of Clooney and Bullock but if you are young like me, stay away lest you doze off and slips off your chair or even worse, hurl insults during the screening.
