Two days ago, at long last, I’ve seen Gravity. I had tried to keep myself away from reviews as much as possible, to try not to be influenced, and I must say I was impressed. The views, the special effects, are mind blowing. I think it’s the first time in quite a while I’ve seen some really realistic — and truly beautiful — depiction of space in a feature film.
Of course, I could argue about every physics issue in the movie. That Tiangong, the ISS and Hubble are not in the same orbits at all, much less in sight from each other. That the Jetpack of Matt should drain fuel so much more quickly. But there’s an important question to ask before that: where would the fun be?
I like cinema because you can go, sit and get lost in a totally new universe each time. Cuarón’s team went great lengths to depict a mostly realistic space, and I think they were smart to “omit” some physics principles. If they wanted to go the realism way all along, there would be no movie. There would be debris impact, agony, end. Or, you can change some facts, and enjoy a one and a half hour length movie. I’d pick the second option.
I didn’t expect much from the script, and thus wasn’t disappointed. Nothing really original on that side, but it wasn’t bad enough to spoil the movie. What upset me a bit more were the couple of Hollywood-style heroic monologues, that seemed more than a bit artificial. Apart from that, great movie.
One more thing: I’m usually not very fond of 3D movies, most of the time because I feel like it’s used more as a gimmick than anything else. Not that time. I think Gravity deserves to be viewed in 3D. It’s very well used, and the feeling of absolute void in some scenes is really bluffing.