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I loved GRAVITY so much that I went to see the movie a few times while it was in theaters. It is one of the few films where the 3D is actually relevant and works and adds something to the movie. It was visually STUNNING and none of the other space films that followed looked nearly as gorgeous. It was such a simple survival story but yet so good and entertaining. I remember the theater clapping in the end and some people crying during the scene where she is about to give up (and howls).
Sandra Bullock was incredible in this. Top notch acting and I supported her Oscar nom for this 100%. This was basically a one woman show where she had to show off every emotion and facial expression and tone. From her breathing to her reactions, she was phenomenal in this (and am thankful Angelina Jolie refused to do it cause they wouldn't pay her what she wanted. Sandra Bullock lost in space is far more vulnerable and scary than Angelina Jolie lost in space).
George Clooney was good, but he could have been great if he chose to do a little more with the small role he had. For instance, when he drifts away and he knows he's gonna die, as he's speaking to Ryan I would have liked to hear more of a breakdown in his voice. Instead he stays calm throughout. That was cool of him, so she doesn't worry, but reality would set in and I feel there would be a panic before we don't hear him any longer. I wished that Clooney would have done that, but he didn't, so be it.
Fantastic film, yet so simple, but so visually stunning. Top notch.
9.5/10
Your honest thoughts and opinions?
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It’s really really good, but I still think Interstellar and The Martian are far better.
Interstellar? No way. The pretentious dialogue is unforgivable. Most of it came from Anne Hathaway’s character and it was ridiculous. That whole bookshelf scene was ridiculous.
Bookshelf was more believable than some of the clear breaking of Newtonian physics in Gravity. I love both movies. Neither is perfect.
Bookshelf is nonsense. He communicated with her vis morsecode through a watch.
Which part of it do you have the trouble with?
come on and Gravity wasn't ridiculous in it's science? It was a good technical movie from the standpoint of how they filmed it, and it was a good story. But when you sit down and think about the science, it really is no better than Martian or Interstellar. At least in Interstellar the whole communicating via bookcase scene can be explained away by the space time continuum inside the teseract. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzE6bKIKK3A
Did you hear the dialogue between bullock and clooney? Gravity was like a feature length tech demo. Explosion leading into explosion with dramatic pauses and then Michael bay stuff.
I like gravity. Keeps me grounded.
Get this man an upvote
me too
One of my favorites of the decade. An immense technical and emotional achievement, it is. The finale with Stone falling to earth and the Steven Price's score playing in the background never fails to move the hell out of me.
I disagree about "reality setting in" and affecting Kowalski's voice. Sure Clooney can sell the drama, but I'm glad he underplay that scene.
His character is a highly trained professional trying to walk a newbie through a risky procedure on an open mic.
Listen to actual radio broadcasts of astronauts who are or might be in trouble. Listen to the audio from Mission Control when a disaster hits.
He might have toggled the channel closed and howled like a three-year old. There were plans to cut communications with the Apollo astronauts if they were stranded on the moon, to give them just such an opportunity.
But astronauts train, train, and train some more until they can ignore distractions (even fatal ones) to get the job done.
It's one of those movies that's shit on constantly in this sub and it's super annoying. Same with The Revenant.
"The dialogue isn't that good." ... They weren't going for Sorkin/Tarantino here fellas.
"The story isn't that original." ... What more can you do with two people stranded in space? They're stranded, bad things happen, they need to get home.
"It's not scientifically accurate." ... 99% of "based on a true story" movies are historically inaccurate. It's a movie.
I love this movie, one of my all time favorites. I will always be sad though that I never saw it in theaters :(
“They weren't going for Sorkin/Tarantino here fellas.”
I mean that doesn’t excuse it. The spectrum for writing isn’t binary and is bigger than just “Bad” or “Tarantino”. The writing isn’t bad but it’s far from good. Honestly aside from its technical achievements, and they are big, most of the surrounding aspects range from good at best to bad at worst. That’s why people are hard on the film. Because like Avatar, you remove the technical achievement and you’re left with a pretty okay movie.
If we're talking about writing from a dialogue standpoint, it was just fine. It did its job. You walk out of a Tarantino movie saying "damn, that dialogue was so good". Not Gravity, that's not the point of the movie.
It's fine to take issues with its writing in terms of narrative structure / story. I disagree with that, because again, it's trying to tell a survival story with 2 people in space. Not much else you can do with that besides what they ended up doing.
I feel like a movie doesn’t have to make writing its “point” to have good writing. I personally don’t subscribe to the idea that serviceable equals good. Or at the very least, that we should settle for passable. Especially on a film from such high caliber filmmakers. However beyond that, it’s not just dialogue that I find issue with, but also how heavy handed its message is. There’s no real subtlety to it. You’re right that when dealing with a survival film consisting of 1-3 characters, the focus does shift, but there are examples of films that do a much better job of it.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that this film was nominated for Best Picture that year, so that invites all sorts of criticism. Which is indeed fair considering that BP should be reserved for the most well rounded films of the year, which arguably, Gravity is not.
Saying "whelp they couldnt have done better" and "you can't criticize the dialogue because it's not dialogue driven" is a pretty weak defense lol. It doesn't change that the film is really lacking in these departments. Even if they couldn't have done more with the narrative, which i think they could have, its still a weak narrative. Being unable to change it from what it is now doesn't change that.
WHAT???! You missed out BIG TIME. This is one of those that needed to be seen in theaters. This is one of the few films where the 3D was actually used well and looks stunning.
I didn't see Avatar, Inception, Life of Pi, Interstellar, The Revenant, or Mad Max: Fury Road in theaters. That was all just before I got interested in movies.
I hate my younger self.
Can happily say I've seen a majority of those in theaters save for Life of Pi and Gravity. Of course, there's always more I wish I could have seen but that'd be too many to list.
Yup, you missed out big time lol. Avatar in theaters was one of the greatest experiences ever. It wasnt like watching a movie, it was almost like an event. People stood up screaming, clapping and going nuts after the bad guy loses. And then the end they all clapped again and cheered. I saw it 9 times in theaters cause, like I said, it was not like just watching a movie, it was an experience. And each experience was incredible minus the one 2D showing I did and it was more quiet. AVATAR did 3D right, and brought it back in general.
The rest were great also on the big screen, but out of that list the most beautiful was AVATAR... followed by Fury Road, with all its bright and vivid colors. Interstellar space scenes looked beautiful.
You can throw in The Dark Knight trilogy.
But now Nolan is my favorite director. Really hoping a lot more of those IMAX re-releases start happening to these movies...
Flawed but fun.
I loved it. An amazing movie.
By far the greatest 3D experience i've ever had in a theater.
Yup. Visually awesome. I’m sure it triggered a lot of flat earth weirdos.
Visually stunning and extremely intense, but the dialogue wasn't exactly strong. That really put a bad taste in my mouth, but I should probably see it again (haven't in years).
Great movie. That’s my opinion
If it ever finds its way back into the theater, I’d definitely see it a second time. Watching it on the small screen doesn’t have the same appeal.
I think it's a masterpiece.
It's an experience. I see a lot of people give it shit for lack of character development and such, but it's not trying to tell that story. It's quite literally a story about survival in a place where we are not meant to survive, and thus the focus is about getting home. Sure, you gotta throw in some details to get you to empathize with the lead, but I felt like it did that.
If that's not your thing, then that's cool, but for me, it was a pretty visceral experience, and by the end of it, it feels so cathartic that I couldn't help but love it.
Some might describe it as a shallow film that's devoid of anything but surface-level thrills, but it takes a ton of hard work and talent to craft an experience like that and make it feel real.
My main takeaway is that this movie was ideal for 3D, which I otherwise can't stand.
3D movies usually (always?) result in dimmer images. In Gravity, everything you're supposed to see is very bright. Pure sunlight shines on white space suits, the white shuttle, white space stations, orange solar panels, and the white and orange parachute.
These images pop against flat backgrounds, especially against the dark void of space. Objects tend not to compete for your eyes' focus. Even when the action ramps up, the long continuous takes make things easier for your eyes and brain. It's all very legible. If I watch a 3D movie with lots of quick cuts and frantic action, I go crazy. God help me if there is shaky cam and increased shutter speeds. Watching a Captain America movie in 3D would give me a seizure.
My neck hurts when watching 3D, maybe because I tense up to keep my head perfectly still. So many action movies now exceed two hours. Gravity comes in at a tidy 90-minute running time.
Probably the subtlest point is that the sound design made things easier on my brain. You know how when you're driving and trying to find where you're going, you turn down the radio? It's so there isn't an extra thing competing for your brain's attention. 3D demands more from my eyes and brain. Having most of the action happen silently (or muffled through space suits) in the vacuum of space made the 3D visuals easier to process for me. The droning score was really the movie's main sound effect.
The setting, composition, technique, and running time all made Gravity the best possible 3D experience.
Normally I moan about a story's logic, dialogue, and all the other things that people complain about with Gravity. Sure, in the theater some of those things crossed my, but my thoughts didn't linger on them for more than a few seconds. I was simply in awe the entire time.
I thought it was really good, watched it numerous times at a friends house as it was the first 3D film his parents bought when they got their new 3D TV, literally everytime we went back to the house high we'd sit and watch it, such a good looking movie with effective use of 3D.
Ironically the gravity was depicted inaccurately.
Was a great theater experience....but isnt very rewatchable on the small screen
Fun spectacle 🍿 movie.
6/10.
Since others haven't touched on it yet, I want to praise the symbolism in it. People have found metaphors to evolution in it. But for me it was much more about a woman dealing with the death of her daughter - a trauma that disconnects you from life (Earth). Drift too far from reality and you die, crash back too soon too fast and you die. And the scene of her floating in the space station being an undeniable parallel to being in the womb, signifying her rebirth back to a livable life.
Simply an incredible movie that definitely deserves a re-release in a decade or two.
Yes. I always say it’s a story of rebirth. Her floating in the space station was as if she were just conceived in the womb. Then she’s awake. Later you see when she lands in the ocean and comes out into the water it’s as if she were just born. Then she gets on land and lays there. Then slowly gets on all fours. Then slowly begins to crawl. Then slowly stands. Then slowly walks as if she’s learning to walk for the first time. Fantastic film.
I really hated the floating womb thing and I remember groaning at the obviousness of it.
But after several rewatches I can say that I really love the movie now.
is good
Loved it too. Preferred it to Interstellar
Only saw part of The Martian, I liked what I saw but out of all those space adventure movies Gravity just pulled me in completely
I found The Martian ridiculous
It was more accurate than gravity
I didn’t watch for accuracy.
It isnt quite a compelling on repeated viewings for me, but as theater experience at the time, I loved it.
I wouldn't give it a 9.5 but it was decent. Maybe an eight?
It bothers me when people say it’s nothing but a great technical achievement. This movie has amazing symbolism, a beautiful, simple story (simple stories are often so much harder to tell), the directing is so absolutely spot on. There is so much to love about this movie besides it having great visuals. People say they are tired of having trash movies that focus too much of visuals and they’re tired of pretentious art films. But here is a movie that has both amazin visuals and is an equally great movie, and everyone hates it. It’s a damn shame.
It's a Sandra Bullock movie. (Which means it's terrible.)
I though Sandra Bullock looked pretty good in it
Meh. Overhyped but it was only ok
Most of the movie I'd say Gravity was a solid zero for me. Then right at the end there it shot up to a 9.807
Edit: For clarification since I seem to be getting downvotes. 9.807 m/s is Earths gravity..I actually like the movie.
m/s^2
I personally didn't really like it, it's been years since I've watched it though.
Visually it looks great no doubt - but I felt it lacked in plot and there was way too much breathing for me. I fell asleep trying to watch it.
The movie felt kind of repetitive and the dialogue was mediocre. There's also some really heavy handed symbolism. I honestly felt like the spectacle became a lot less interesting as the film went on, and that's all to really latch onto with the movie. It really should have been a short film or something but then it would be pretty expensive for something that isn't theatrical.
It was ok. Wish it had more Clooney.
I felt he did nothing with his screen time.
I think it was marvelous to watch on the big screen and I can't forgive the absurdity of the situation but I can't really watch it again on a smaller scale. It's not nearly immersive.
Gravity is great fiction. A lot of things are very accurate and it has the feeling of being plausible, but it is completely impossible to get from one spacecraft to another like is shown without having meticulous planning and computation. You cannot "point at a thing", thrust, and expect to intercept it. Further, space (even for bodies in low Earth orbit) is vast. Things are simply not reachable with the limited propellant that would be available. Things (like TDRSS, ISS, other space stations, and Hubble) are not in nearly the same orbits as each other. The delta v that would be required of that "jetpack" would be enormous ... but aside from all of that, it was great entertainment.