Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, disturbing images and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.4.13
On Jan. 11, 2007, the Chinese
military destroyed one of its orbiting satellites with a ground-based missile.
Although China insisted that this was the best way to “retire” the aging
satellite, visions of a surface-to-space missile race naturally alarmed more
than a few nations around the world.
 |
| When things go wrong in space, they go very wrong, as Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) quickly discovers. Situations that would be bad enough on the ground, with gravity operating in one's favor, quickly turn catastrophic in an environment where a small space suit puncture likely would mean instantaneous death. |
Saber-rattling aside, the much
more serious issue was the orbiting “debris cloud” of up to 300,000 bits of
satellite that resulted, which still could pose serious danger to other
satellites or spacecraft en route to the moon and beyond. (NASA, worried about
this since 1978, has dubbed the frightening possibility of cascading collisions
the Kessler Syndrome.) For this very reason, the U.S. and the Soviet Union
halted such anti-satellite experiments in the 1980s.
Clearly, filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón
smelled an opportunity. The result, which he directed and co-wrote with his
son, Jonás, is Gravity: one of the very few feasible space-based dramas ever
released via conventional channels. (I say this to distinguish Cuarón’s film
from numerous sci-fi and fantasy entries, or jes’-plain-silly action epics such
as Armageddon and Space Cowboys.)
Gravity is both a suspenseful
nail-biter and an impressive visual achievement: a studio production that comes
close to the on-screen authenticity of an IMAX space documentary. The special
effects are stunning, from the gorgeously depicted EVA mission that opens the
story, to the weightless activity that takes place within a space station.
When Sandra Bullock “swims” her
way from one end of the station to another, passing all sorts of floating
debris along the way — not to mention little globules of liquid, or zero-G
electrical sparks — everything looks absolutely real. We can’t help a “how the
heck did they do that?” sense of wonder, despite our frequent ho-hum reaction
to what CGI effects have wrought these days.
Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
and visual effects supervisor Tim Webber — and the latter’s company, Framestore
— have done stunning work. Indeed, their efforts are almost too good; at times
it’s hard to focus on the story, since we’re so frequently dazzled by the
on-screen visuals.
But only at times. Cuarón has
orchestrated a taut survival drama that masterfully exploits claustrophobic
terrors, not to mention related fears of drowning, suffocating or simply being
hurled, alone, into the depths of space, able to do nothing but count down the
seconds before the oxygen runs out.
