Sunday, October 6, 2013

Gravity (2013): Review

I decided that if I wanted to see Gravity, which I did, that it was probably worth going to see it in IMAX 3D to get the full effect and therefore that is what I have done.  going into the movie I was hoping for a lot, A) because it stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney who are both good actors, B) I have heard a lot of about the effort that went into the special effects and zero gravity simulations, and C) I tend to like destroys in space movies.  Although this movie is not the best of the year, it was very good and I was kept interested throughout the entire film. 
Gravity is set around Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, who is on her first space excursion because she is there doing updates on the Hubble Telescope, she is uneasy in space but is being led through this experience by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, there are a few other voices in the movie (i.e. Houston control) but the movies is basically these two with the focus on Bullock. While they are outside the space shuttle doing an update on the telescope they are hit by flying shrapnel from a Russian satellite that was destroyed because it was defunct.  This destroys the space shuttle, sends Dr. Stone drifting and separates her from Kowalski.  Stone has to try and survive this ordeal, while trying to be kept calm by Kowalski, dealing with her own internal demons and trying to get back to Terra Firma.  While this is all happening there are lots of space scapes, views of Earth from space, and zero gravity effects.
I will start with Sandra Bullock, who was basically the focus on the entire movie and its main star (you could consider the views and space as the co-star) and she did a wonderful job in this movie.  I think that she is a fantastic actress and it can be very difficulty to carry a whole movie by oneself and I think she does a great job.  There are even moments where she connects with the audience even when it is just her voice doing the work in the scene.  She got me to care about her, feel some of her emotions (more as the movie went on, in the beginning not so much as the peril starts early on and I hadn't really been drawn in at this point yet), and hope that she is able to pull it off and survive.
The special effects in this movie were pretty good and you can see all the time and effort that went into everything, at times it does have that computer generated edge to it but overall it was very good.  It was the zero gravity effects (water droplets/ items floating) and internal space station shots that seemed the most obvious to me). At times the zero gravity and how things moved seemed a bit off but that may have been more me then anything.  I have it in my head how people should move in zero gravity (this goes back to my days of wanting to be an astronaut, going to space camp, and seeing actual film of people in space) and at to me it seemed like she was always too much centered in things and at times she seemed anchored but didn't have a hand or foot on anything, but this wasn't rally that big of a deal.
I enjoyed this movie and it kept me interested throughout the who thing.  There was a moment where I was irritated, and though come on that would never happen, but they were able to bring it back to okay for me, at times I would get ahead of what she should be trying and would go come on move a bit faster you are in survival mode, but overall it was fair paced.  Like I mentioned earlier this was basically because of Sandra Bullock and her acting ability.
I went and saw this movie in 3D and I think that if you are going to see this movie it is worth the extra few dollars.  With the 3D you are able to see the dimensions of things, the depth into space and have the zero gravity floating objects actually seem like they are float around.

My Rating: 3-

1 comment:

  1. Great review Jane. Worth the watch no matter what, but definitely on the big screen. You just get the full look, feel, and overall experience that comes with going to the movies.

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