Gravity: Review

23rd October 2013

He’s back, James Connors from SouthWalesMassive.

There’s been a lot of hype for ‘Gravity’ over the last few months, in which George Clooney and Sandra Bullock play two astronauts who are working a mission when a Russian missile launch causes deadly consequences. Together, the pair of them have to use whatever is at hand to survive and safely get back to Earth.

It’s been close to 6 years since I saw Beowulf in 3D, a film that honestly couldn’t be saved by its gimmick. Since then, I’ve seen probably close to 20 films using the technique yet still find myself on the fence. When thinking about films that really, truly benefitted from being displayed in 3D the list is much smaller. ‘Tangled’ honestly looked incredible, ‘Avatar’ was essentially a fairground ride that I’m sure was nowhere near as fun at home and the trio of ‘Jackass 3D’, ‘Drive Angry 3D’ and ‘Dredd’ were a fun use to show off silly things flying out of the screen. It seems that I feel 3D is worth it maybe once a year, and while I’m glad the technology exists – I’ll still go see Thor 2 in 2D if that’s the format of the next showing. For most films, it just doesn’t add enough to the experience enough for me to care.

While ‘Beowulf’ was the first proper 3D film I saw in recent years, my first experience goes back a bit further to 1998 while in Florida. One of the attractions at NASA on Cocoa Beach is their IMAX theater, which has been showing 3D exhibitions for years. I remember looking at the glasses I was handed while in the queue and presumed this was going to be another weak effort. I simply couldn’t see how it would work. My fears were instantly quashed when meteors started flying out of the screen and up to my nose. I’d never seen anything like it, and the quality of the film making didn’t detract from the experience I was living. Every time I’ve been back to the cinema with my glasses in my hand, this is the experience I’ve been hoping for again.

What I”m basically building up to is this – ‘Gravity’ is incredible. It’s not a run of the mill film you decide to see in 2D so you can get home early. It’s not a film you wait to watch in your house because you have a 50” TV, 3D or not. ‘Gravity’ is a film where you open your web browser and you look how close your nearest IMAX screen is, because you absolutely have to see it on the biggest screen you can possibly find.

The effect of putting physical depth between the astronauts and the Earth in the background is staggering, enforcing a level of isolation that would be so much harder to do on a flat surface. The filmmakers take full advantage of their situation, simulating sunrises and an incredible looking recreation of the Northern Lights during the experience. Sometimes you find yourself not paying attention to the characters as you try to soak in the visuals, forgetting for a split second that they didn’t actually film this in the great beyond. When you snap out of your gaze, it’s then just as easy to fall into another mindset as you realise how long individual shots are, trying to work out just how they put this film together.

My criticisms of ‘Drive’ from 2011 were fairly straight forward – it’s an incredibly visual experience that suffers from a lacking script. I could probably say the same about ‘Gravity’ – it’s relatively short at 91 minutes and is as high concept as it gets. I could probably have described what happens the entire time in the same length as my opening paragraph, but even if I did it wouldn’t detract from the experience. To my surprise, the trailer and clips are mainly sourced from the first 20 minutes of the movie – a rare treat as you’re then not piecing together plot from things you’ve already seen. It should be noted that the trailer adds in loud sound effects which aren’t present in the movie, which is frankly a relief as they were incredibly off putting in the aforementioned previews.

Beyond the visuals, which will naturally be the most talked about aspect of the movie, we also have superb performances from Clooney and Bullock. Movies in isolation like this absolutely rely on the quality of the actors to work without anyone to converse with. Recent examples of Ryan Reynolds’ ‘Buried’ and Sam Rockwell in ‘Moon’ are obvious comparisons, and ‘Gravity’ is up there with those two – albeit on a far higher budget. Sandra Bullock evokes memories of watching Ellen Ripley evolve in ‘Alien’, while Clooney provides an amount of humour that I wasn’t expecting from the film. Neither character relies too much on backstory, which is fortunate as some of Bullock’s felt a little forced, instead concentrating on the situation at hand and how to react to it. Fear is absolutely the overriding emotion, something that’s passed along to the audience in bucket loads.

All in all, ‘Gravity’ is an experience. The aforementioned visuals feel miles ahead of most of the cheap and plastic looking CG that we’re so used to seeing, and the audio track is used sparingly and is wonderfully effective. It’s exhilarating, beautiful and has moments of utter heartbreak. It’s paced almost perfectly, and is a wonderful example of a rare breed – a “realistic” albeit fictional tale of modern space exploration. It’s a film I wish I could somehow have seen while I was growing up, when everything about space fascinated me, and is the first film I’ve seen in a long time where I’m itching to go back to the big screen to watch it again. Don’t miss out.

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