For as much as we know about space nowadays, it remains just as much of an unknown as it’s always been. In spite of what’s been discovered about it, there are planets that continue to be discovered and unearthed. One of the only that we know for sure is that humans couldn’t live up there due to the lack of oxygen and gravity. Maybe one day we’ll get at least some of the answers that we’re looking for, but it’ll be with a lot of journeys to foreign planets made by only a few experienced people for now.
Trained professionals who may be somewhat like characters Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) will be the ones who gather all of the necessary information that we’ll eventually receive. They spend years trying to learn as much as they can just to learn about things that mankind could never dream of in places where our forefathers could never travel to. It’s a really distant place that, as the movie Gravity points out, is a very beautiful sight to behold for those who get to gaze upon it with their own two eyes. In that sense it’s a shame that the overwhelming majority of us will never get to experience such a treat.
For these lucky universal voyagers, who are literally able to share a portion of their lives with stars and planets, there also comes a number of dangers that come with such an awe-inspiring event. The usual issues like a lack of oxygen and gravity are obvious, but there’s also the problem of maybe running into storm like events that can be natural occurrences or unfortunately man-made. When Stone, Kowalski and their team are faced with this dilemma, they see themselves in a situation that would be extremely difficult for even the most experienced space adventurers to find a way out of.
The dilemma that this team finds themselves in is a life-threatening one that sees Stone put in a position that forces her to operate on her own when she gets detached from the others. These series of events have her fighting for her life while all on her own in an environment that doesn’t even allow for humans to literally stand up o their two feet. What’s witnessed by the audience who watch Gravity is something that becomes a tale of survival that we’ve seen hit the big screen recently. I guess you can say that this style of action is somewhat new for Hollywood’s version cinema.
Gravity itself isn’t what anyone would call a deep movie. It’s straight to the point and stays on a straight line for most of its 91 minute running time. What is seen during this time is essentially something along the lines of Life of Pi. As a matter of fact, I refer to it is Life of Pi: The Space Edition. If you’ve seen that movie, then you’ve seen a better version of Gravity. Just set the movie in space instead of an ocean, and make the lead character an older woman rather than a young teenage boy and you basically have the same story. They really didn’t try to hard to create anything original as far as the storyline (and ending) is concerned.
Aside from Gravity being in space and having the lead character be a woman, the other major difference between the better version of this film is early portions of the movies. In Life of Pi, Ang Lee and the gang decide to use this segment of the film to set up the story as they try to build a connection between Pi, the main character, and the audience that’s watching it. With Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón felt that the need for an approach like that was completely unnecessary. There is literally no build up or anything close to it in Gravity, they just throw you into the story and almost never even try to create any type of connection between the characters and the viewing public.
They try to develop some type of connection with the audience and the characters later on in the movie, but it really doesn’t work at all. It feels cheap and forced in there just for that purpose. There’s never any real need for this part of the story to even be included, because it has absolutely nothing to do with what’s going on. Life of Pi on the other hand, actually takes what they have and fits it properly into the film’s plot. It’s a proper set up that you should expect from a film that’s supposed to be of high quality. Maybe Cuarón and his team of filmmakers forgot about it? Or maybe they just figure you’d be too occupied with watching the pretty visuals to notice?
Speaking of the visuals, that’s about the only thing in Gravity that stands out. The action that we’re watching essentially consist of Sandra Bullock floating around in space while constantly finding her way into trouble immediately after finding her way out of trouble. Does that sound simplistic? That’s because it is. To make her journey even scarier, they decided that it was best to give her another issue in the film. They decided that Ryan Stone also had to have her oxygen running low. Under normal circumstances, I could see how this would be something that a filmmaker would add to a story in order to generate suspense, but it’s kind of ruined in Gravity.
Gravity destroy this potentially thrilling aspect of the story by continuously having Dr. Ryan Stone talk and talk and talk while having the audience being constantly reminded of the fact that she’s running low on oxygen. Now, I’m no expert on space travel or even oxygen, but wouldn’t it be best if she just kept her mouth shut? By simply shutting up, she’d save a bunch of the oxygen that she is losing. Not only that, but she is told to save her breath by Clooney’s character and she doesn’t even attempt to listen. As a matter of fact, the two characters continue to chat it up after he told her this. How does that make sense?
I understand that there needs to be some dialog in the movie, but why even include the whole “lack of oxygen” angle if you’re going to completely ignore it after introducing it? Placing things in a movie just to get some type of reaction from the audience is bad in my opinion, but adding things into a film for that purpose, only to have the creators ignore it themselves is even worse. This is why I prefer the movies that I watch to make as much sense as possible at all times if possible. Plugging features and events in just to build excitement or tension doesn’t work for me. It has to fit within the rest of the movie. That’s something that Gravity didn’t seem to care about.
As I said immediately after watching Gravity with my own eyes, I’m sure Bullock’s performance will be praised and most critics will love this movie for reasons that I can’t fathom. Not only that, I’m sure Bullock and the film will both probably get nods for various awards as well. While I’m willing to bet on that, it’s quite obvious that I don’t feel the same way. In actuality, Gravity just doesn’t contain much substance or quality outside of it looking good. It seems as if Gravity only goal is to celebrate its snazzy graphics and it honestly doesn’t deserve the credit that it will get from people passing out awards and accolades.