3.0 Stars
Gravity is the harrowing tale of the survival of brilliant medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney)
in space. This is Stone's first mission to space and Kowalsky's last
before retiring. While out on a seemingly routine spacewalk, tragedy
strikes. Debris from a nearby Russian satellite that has just exploded
destroys their ship and the space station, killing the rest of the crew
and leaving Stone and Kowalsky drifting away by themselves.
This looks like a combination of Apollo 13 in which astronauts were trapped inside their damaged shuttle and Open Water
in which two scuba divers are stranded in shark infested waters with no
land in sight. Gravity appears to be the worst of both of those
scenarios; however, for me, it failed to truly capture the sense of
desperation. The film starts with about a ten minute continuous shot of
Dr. Stone (Bullock) working on updating a satellite in space while Kowalsky (Clooney)
is maneuvering around the satellite and the shuttle. The
cinematography is brilliant as the camera captures shots of the earth,
of deep space, of Dr. Stone, of the shuttle and of Kowalsky. The crew
is alerted that the Russians have destroyed one of their own satellites
with a missile and debris is heading their way. Although the movie
opens with the notes that sound does not travel through space, for
dramatic effect, we hear the debris screaming past the astronauts and
the ship being torn apart. The debris sends Dr. Stone and Kowalsky
hurdling through space. They are separated and Dr. Stone has no way to
stop herself from floating away. Though we spend a few minutes tumbling
frantically with her, it seemed Kowalsky was able to track her down
rather quickly and they both made their way back to the shuttle to
assess the damages. Upon arriving at the ship, we learn that Dr. Stone
and Kowalsky are the only two survivors. Peering into the wreckage of
the shuttle, silently alone in space, the bodies of two other crew
members killed in the accident come floating towards Dr. Stone and the
silence is broken up with sharp and loud music heightening the terror of
discovering the dead bodies. Sometimes I feel that less is more and
that the horrified reaction of Dr. Stone alone would have been scarier
than the manipulated fear the accompanying music tried to create. Gravity
has been nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Original Music, but I
felt that the music actually took away from the movie rather than
complimented it in many parts of the film.
After
realizing their shuttle is completely destroyed, Dr. Stone and Kowalsky
make their way to the International Space Station where they will
hopefully use one of the pods to make their way back to earth. Dr.
Stone is running low on oxygen and Kowalsky keeps her talking to keep
her calm and conserve her oxygen. But he also has a problem as his jet
pack is running low of propulsion fuel. Once they make it to the ISS,
Kowalsky quickly realizes, they both won't be able to make it and one of
them must go forward without the other. He sacrifices himself and she
enters the ISS. I know that he is a professional astronaut and makes
the smart decision to allow Dr. Ryan to continue, but I felt the scene
was just a little too quick and emotionless again failing to create the
sense of Dr. Ryan's situation getting more and more desperate and
hopeless. Once inside the ISS, Dr. Ryan realizes the boosters on the
remaining escape pod have been damaged and she appears to be trapped.
She quickly gives up on herself and shuts down the oxygen supply to her
ship. Miraculously, Kowalsky reappears claiming he was able to find a
little more juice in his jet pack to make it back to her and reminds her
that there's still a way to power the escape pod enough to make it to a
nearby Chinese satellite which should still have an escape pod to make
it to earth. It turns out, predictably to me, that the Kowalsky return
is a hallucination, but it's enough to prompt Dr. Stone to give it
another shot. She resupplies her pod with oxygen and makes her way to
the Chinese satellite. There is, indeed, a remaining pod and she's able
to use the pod to safely return to earth.
