Gravity: Best Science Fiction Film 2013
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| Gravity shows up at the end. |
One of the best Sci-fi movies ever made hands down. If you have heard any praise given to this picture before you actually watch it then pay attention because this Alfonso Cuarón movie (he directs and produces) does deserve it.
The story is simple and yet mind-boggling. A U.S. mission is making important modifications in the Hubble telescope, and two of the crew members are veteran Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) and Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) a specialist who is there more because she is essential to the project than for skills as an astronaut (she is actually terrified to be there). Things start to go wrong when they are informed that the Russians, in an attempt to destroy one of their own old satellites, have accidentally begun a chain reaction and a destructive cloud of debris is about to strike them so they must abort the mission. When they are trying to go back into their shuttle the cloud hits them proving so deadly it destroys the shuttle and kills most of the crew leaving only Kowalsky and Ryan as sole survivors with no connection with the Houston base since the debris also destroyed vital communications satellites. Ryan is seemingly lost in space but is rescued by Kowalsky and together they return to the shuttle to find everyone was dead. Kowalsky devises a plan: they must reach the abandoned Russian Soyuz space station to get inside a scape pod and then reach the Chinese space station that is at the time also uninhabited but still operational. It is a crazy plan but their only chance to survive if they have any.
I must say that the visuals of this movie are superb which is why you should see it in an IMAX 3D screen. The story goes beyond what is described above and goes into the spiritual to become an allegory of the struggle of human beings against elements so hostile to their existence such as space itself and that is also another plus since most of the time is Sandra Bullock in the whole film and you see how Cuarón takes time to make an excellent display of character development in a dimension never explored before thus overcoming something that most Sci-fi films have often been accused of in the past: too many flat characters.
In the end, Gravity must be one of the greatest movies I have ever seen and a must-see in the list of those who love Science Fiction films, though due to some disturbing scenes of what happens to people when dying in space I must also says this is not a family movie.
Six stars out of five (yes, it's that good!)
The story is simple and yet mind-boggling. A U.S. mission is making important modifications in the Hubble telescope, and two of the crew members are veteran Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) and Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) a specialist who is there more because she is essential to the project than for skills as an astronaut (she is actually terrified to be there). Things start to go wrong when they are informed that the Russians, in an attempt to destroy one of their own old satellites, have accidentally begun a chain reaction and a destructive cloud of debris is about to strike them so they must abort the mission. When they are trying to go back into their shuttle the cloud hits them proving so deadly it destroys the shuttle and kills most of the crew leaving only Kowalsky and Ryan as sole survivors with no connection with the Houston base since the debris also destroyed vital communications satellites. Ryan is seemingly lost in space but is rescued by Kowalsky and together they return to the shuttle to find everyone was dead. Kowalsky devises a plan: they must reach the abandoned Russian Soyuz space station to get inside a scape pod and then reach the Chinese space station that is at the time also uninhabited but still operational. It is a crazy plan but their only chance to survive if they have any.
I must say that the visuals of this movie are superb which is why you should see it in an IMAX 3D screen. The story goes beyond what is described above and goes into the spiritual to become an allegory of the struggle of human beings against elements so hostile to their existence such as space itself and that is also another plus since most of the time is Sandra Bullock in the whole film and you see how Cuarón takes time to make an excellent display of character development in a dimension never explored before thus overcoming something that most Sci-fi films have often been accused of in the past: too many flat characters.
In the end, Gravity must be one of the greatest movies I have ever seen and a must-see in the list of those who love Science Fiction films, though due to some disturbing scenes of what happens to people when dying in space I must also says this is not a family movie.
Six stars out of five (yes, it's that good!)
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