"Gravity" Review

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Beyond Earth’s atmosphere, there exists an immense void.

No oxygen, no water, no air pressure and nothing to carry sound.

“Life in space is impossible,” or so the title card at the beginning of “Gravity” leads us to believe.

 To start things off, director Alfonso Cuarón (“Children of Men”) primes the audience for an assault of the senses with a deafening, brain-rattling drone from composer Steven Price that halts quickly, suddenly dropping the audience into the quiet vastness of outer space.

It’s not the loud score that’s shocking so much as it is the stark quiet and the sharp contrast in sound.

This clever filmmaking technique grabs the audience and refuses to let go, sucking them in like a massive vacuum in the film’s first 30 seconds.

From there, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki conducts a dazzling, 13-minute, single-take ballet of sweeping camera movements that seem to dance in and around the Hubble space telescope on which the featured space travelers (George Clooney, Sandra Bullock) are at once conducting repairs, then suddenly sent adrift by a blizzard of flying debris from the destruction of an obsolete satellite.

These first 13 minutes use 3D imagery and masterful camerawork to place the audience right alongside the actors, allowing them to embark on as realistic a spacewalk as most moviegoers are ever likely to experience.

“Gravity” is most assuredly a technical marvel and the most essential use of 3D presentation since “Avatar.”

Aside from the visual wizardry, Cuarón and his son Jonás pen a succinct script.

Superficially it’s just a story about finding your way back home, even if it takes kickback from a fire extinguisher to get you there. 

(Real-life NASA astronaut Michael J. Massimino confirmed to Dennis Overbye of The New York Times that such use of a fire extinguisher is indeed accurate and not a corny stunt.)

Perhaps more deeply, it’s about the re-invigoration that our lives get from second chances.

Parallels for rebirth and new life can be discerned throughout, though these might warrant multiple viewings in order to fully grasp and dissect them.

Such parallels stem from the heavy-handed backstory of Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock).

We’d still care about her even without the tragedy she once faced at home because we’re along with her for the ride, experiencing the same emotions as she feels them in any given moment.

However, the backstory proves essential to Stone’s character, allowing her to undergo the transformation from a timid, rookie medical engineer to a steadfast survivor emerging from her re-entry capsule like a butterfly from its cocoon.

With every desperate gasp for air and every call to “Houston” (voice of Ed Harris), Bullock gives the performance of her career, capturing the raw emotion needed to make Dr. Stone an affecting character that the audience can root for.

As astronaut Matt Kowalski, Clooney brings his trademark cool and suave, collected nature, never raising his voice or appearing panicked in the face of imminent danger.

He provides a handful of laughs in the early goings when he speaks to “Houston,” telling funny, anecdotal stories that serve as character development for Kowalski.

The stars make a great contrasting pair, with Bullock’s Dr. Stone the withdrawn antithesis to Clooney’s cowboy Kowalski.

“Gravity” is the kind of movie that some people wait their whole lives to see.

The groundbreaking visual effects, spectacular 3D imagery, masterful cinematography, arresting musical score and bravura performances make Alfonso Cuarón’s mission to space gripping, intense, emotional, and near-perfect on every technical level.

The best, most exhilarating movie of 2013 thus far demands to be viewed in 3D on the largest IMAX screen possible.

No other format would do it justice on first viewing.

10/10