Gravity or no Gravity?

I had very high expectations when I went to watch Gravity last week; the movie had great reviews and ratings (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.5 on IMDB), lots of my friends were impressed and everyone was already talking about Oscar. Not to mention that I love George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. Of course I believed all the hype and imagined it will be as great and magnificent as told.

And it is true, the images are overwhelming, the special effects definitely deserve an Oscar, the work of Alfonso Cuaron (who has given the world Children of Men or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) is incredible. So realistic and breathtaking, in fact, that you’ll forget you’re watching special effects, and feel as if the movie were actually shot in space. The level of technical detail and accuracy is amazing, and Cuarón’s use of extended sequences without cuts magnificently enhances the sense of place and realism.

But the story is flat, safe, the sort of supermarket philosophy very popular at Hollywood. How many times have you watched a movie with a character whose life lost purpose, due to tragedy in the past and who isolates from other people and concentrates on work and all of a sudden something happened that forces her to confront her loss and fear and regain the desire to live? Hundreds of time I think. This is not enough for a movie with only two characters, even one if we think that George Clooney disappeared after less than an hour. It is such a pity that the screenplay was not on the same level with the images. Or maybe the bar was set too high.

How do you feel about the movie? Did you enjoy it?