Movie Review: "Gravity"

"Gravity": B+.  It is typical of parenthood that you want your children to have opportunities which will enable them to pursue their dreams to the fullest, to "be all that they can be" (to coin a phrase), and once they become adults, to have a chance to earn their living in an occupation they love.  After having seen Gravity, however, I think I would draw the line at any of them becoming an astronaut.  Nope, I would not want my son or daughter up there in outer space.  Luckily for me and my kids, they are at the stage in their lives where it's out of my hands.  I am happy to report that Momma Cuan and I have two teachers and a food & beverage manager; no astronauts!

Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on a three-person astronaut team led by Mission Commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney).  Their ship is the Explorer, which is roughly seventy miles above the Earth where there is no atmosphere.  Stone is performing some maintenance work on the outside of the Explorer, while Kowalski is floating around by means of a jetpack, untethered, enjoying the view and issuing witty quips to Stone via radio.  This tranquility doesn't last long, and once it's over the movie viewer is on her way to a nail-biting experience.

Mission Control ("Houston") orders the mission aborted when it's learned that space debris from a Russian satellite is heading toward the Explorer.  Stone balks at terminating her repair work before it's completed, but Kowalski orders her to obey.  Before the two of them can get back into the capsule, the debris arrives, dislodging Stone's tether from its mooring point on the vessel.  Hence, the dreaded "U word": unattached. She is floating around, except unlike Kowalski, she is not wearing a jet pack!

To reveal much more would be risking a spoiler.  If you think of all the things that could go wrong with a space mission, other than a launching explosion, it happens in Gravity.  Loss of communication with Houston, oxygen deprivation, loss of thrusting capabilities, fire, equipment failures, attempts to decipher instructions in a foreign language, more space debris, etc.

The special effects used in Gravity are obviously required by the setting, and they are spectacular.  This is a movie that demands to be seen in 3-D.  Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron avoids the temptation to get too cutesy with that asset, making mostly judicious use of it. (Momma Cuan admits, however, that she was afraid some of the flying debris was going to strike her in the eye!)  The views of Earth as seen from the astronauts' point of view are breathtaking and, I would imagine based on reports from "real life" solar system explorers, quite realistic.

Sandra Bullock turns in a top rate performance as Stone.  Her role requires her to play a serious scientist who is capable of athletic maneuvers when faced with one crisis after another.  There are a few scenes in which she appears to have trained hard to look good on camera when she's not enveloped in a bulky astronaut suit.  Unfortunately, we do not get to learn much of her character's (Stone's) background.  This is one of the few faults I can find with the script.  In war movies, the generals always have complete bios not only on the officers under their command, but on their adversaries as well.  It seems to me that a Mission Commander like Kowalski would do the same before they launched, yet the questions he puts to Stone as they're floating around indicate that he did not do his due diligence.

If the viewer so chooses, she can look beyond the action portrayed on the screen and see this story as a study in the human will.  In life or death situations, people have been known to find strength they did not realize they possessed. How much does faith come into play?  How much is simply man's primary basic instinct, self-preservation?  At what point does one give up to face the inevitable?