Gravity movie review
The suspense film genre recently has been fairly unimpressive, at least I can’t think of anything since Phonebooth that I really enjoyed because of its storyline and simple premise. When I heard that Sandra Bullock and George Clooney were going to be in a film based entirely in space I wondered if it would be good, and the trailer looked pretty solid. So a couple of weeks ago I went with my friend to see how Sandra and George work together and now here is my Gravity movie review.
Plot
Gravity’s story and setting is extremely simple: astronauts are the victims of a catastrophic event leaving them in orbit and mortal danger. That said the story definitely runs at a nice pace throughout and I certainly wasn’t convinced we were going to have a typical ending. In the end I don’t think we did either, but I’ll leave that up to yourselves to decide if it is the case or not!
There was just one moment where I thought “Eh, that doesn’t seem right but I see why you’re doing it for the plot.” Would be interested to hear if anyone found they couldn’t suspend disbelief for more than that single point, or if there was something different from what I wasn’t convinced by which had the same effect. This is the only reason I rated the plot as a four star, otherwise it was thoroughly enjoyable.
Cast
The one thing which I particularly enjoyed with this movie is the limited cast. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are basically the only two members of active cast, supported brilliantly by four voice actors. It seems such a rarity these days for movies to not have a wide range of characters and thus a cast of many recognisable faces.
There is absolutely no need for a wide range of characters and supporting cast in Gravity, no fretting families on the ground which the director cuts to or some secondary plot with a race against time to make some kind of rescue effort. Instead you have Sandra and George, proving their acting chops and bringing us the audience along with them in a story which does its best to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Visuals & Effects
I don’t think you can fault Gravity in terms of its visuals without being really quite picky. There is a wonderful eye for detail and I can’t imagine it was easy to achieve either, but adding that tangible feel of it being all in zero gravity I can only imagine took some phenomenal effort to reach. There are vistas, close ups and all the movements between which worked neatly together as one flowed to the next giving me what I felt was that “proper cinematic experience” on the big screen.
Soundtrack
One thing that a suspense film often depends on is a good soundtrack, and I certainly remember the phrase “In space no one can hear you scream” coined by another film and boy does Gravity play well on that one. The level of realism in terms of what you hear is certainly to my layman’s mind well produced. The background compliments the right level of vocal clarity nicely, with the action scenes not being drowned out in a cacophony of sound but just enough extra to go beyond what the character would hear.
Conclusion – Gravity
I didn’t realise the cast was going to be so limited, even if I had known I don’t think it would have changed my opinion though, and quite frankly it works extremely well. Just two actors and four voice actors. If you like some tension, nicely produced imagery and want to have just a couple of twists which make the overall story arch work then this is worth it.
Also with a running time of just 91 minutes it is a nice length, something I feel that many films have become guilty of stretching out needlessly (I’m looking at you The Hobbit). For my part, this is one of those few films I will be getting the Blu-ray of when it comes out rather than using Netflix or another service to watch when I feel like.
Huston in the blind, this is Ragnar signing off.
