Gravity - A Review

GRAVITY
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
Reviewed by Ernest M. Whiteman III

Oh, Spoilers, I guess…

I had the pleasure of being able to purchase an “IMAX 3D Experience” ticket on the opening weekend for Cuarón’s latest movie. It was a visually joy to behold. For me, this movie falls on the opposite end of the barometer with “Pacific Rim”. Both have Mexican directors telling simple science fiction stories using high-tech computer graphics. Where “Pacific Rim” failed was in its complete misunderstanding of its genre, “Gravity” succeeds is in its use of technology to tell its story, anchored by two, subtle, realistic performances and not shrill people mugging because giant robots fighting giant monsters is cool.

This movie pares away the unnecessary elements of hyperbolic moviemaking. It creates the situation by creating the environment as close to reality as possible. Sure, there are scientific errors to be sure. A filmmaker is making this movie, not an astrophysicist, and visuals and situations are key to telling the story.

The story is a simple one. While on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope a pair of astronauts are caught in a life or death situation high above the earth as debris from a destroyed satellite tears their shuttle apart, cutting off communications, literally stranding them in space. They, then have a series of 90-minute windows to try to reach some sort of safety before the debris hits again. Will they make it?

While absolutely not the best picture I have seen this year (That is still “The Grandmaster”), it is still a great movie with some stunning visuals, awesome 3D imagery, great cinematography, all anchored by a great performance by Sandra Bullock, and one of the best sound designs ever. For once, space is quiet. The music is used to create the emotional anchors that a sound design would sell in any other movie.

It is probably one of the very few really great 3D movies I have seen since I gave 3D a chance. It is the 3D that sells the space, the situations, and the dangers. This is how you use 3D to tell your story in a movie, I think.

Unfortunately, the film missteps with its dip into sentimental, existential spiritualism, which completely robs the triumph the human spirit, enterprise, and ingenuity of its victorious moment in the story. In this I mean, during the whole story, we see their absolute will to overcome the situation and how they succeed on sheer might of will and ingenuity. Once it dips into this sentimentality, it sort of robs all they went through and overcame of its meaning. Of course, that is one way of interpreting the ending.

I can understand why they would include it. To give the main character an arc of salvation, a turning point. But in this case, literal salvation – simple survival, is robbed of its triumph by its inclusion. The mere act of saving life becomes belittled because it needs to be attached to some grand cause. It did not jibe for me.

Still, the story surrounding that moment, the characters, the visuals, the 3D and the adherence to verisimilitude are more than enough to carry this into being one of my favorites of the year by one of my favorite directors.

Recommended in “IMAX” 3D!

Note: I put the "IMAX" in quotes because we all know that those large screens they tout as IMAX at the multiplex are not really IMAX screens.

2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III