When my friend and I saw Apollo 18, we ate some freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream. I ended up enjoying the ice cream more than I enjoyed the movie. (I'm pretty good at reviewing movies.) We recently saw Gravity in IMAX 3D and we sneaked in some Tang and the some more of that delicious strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate freeze-dried astronaut ice cream. This time the whole experience was enjoyable, not just our snacks.
Gravity is different from what I was expecting. I thought most of it would be the main characters just floating out in space, completely isolated, and that it would deal with psychological and emotional consequences of that situation. Although the movie did deal with those consequences, there was a lot less floating in nothingness than I was expecting. There was actually quite a bit of action. I didn't count my false assumption against the movie though.
I was really looking forward to Gravity, since it just looked like it was going to be cool, and I am a big fan of director Alfonso Cuarón's previous movie Children Of Men. I think that movie is almost perfect, but I always had one minor complaint, which really just comes down to a difference in personal taste. Although I'm fascinated by the idea of embracing accidents in the creative process, I was never sold on the blood splatter on the screen during one of the "long shots" that Cuarón is known for. I just find that specific effect to be distracting. It takes me out of the movie, which, unless I'm mistaken, goes against the very reason for using those long shots. The same kind of thing happens with drops of water in Gravity.
I also feel that Gravity had some clunky, cheesy dialogue, and most of that was superfluous. Some of the time it seemed like a character was just saying out loud what they were doing as they were doing it. Other times it seemed like they were just speaking their thoughts to no one at all, just so the audience would know what they were thinking. It was very obvious to me that's what was happening, which takes me out of the movie as much as water splashing on the screen, and in most of these moments I just felt they could have been silent and the audience would have understood exactly what was going on. I guess dialogue maybe isn't one of the more important elements of this particular movie though. (I loved the dialogue in Children Of Men though!)
I've read a lot of complaints about the movie not being realistic, but who the hell expected it to be a science lesson? I didn't watch Gravity to learn about space, and even though I love sharks, I don't watch Jaws to learn about the behaviors of the Great White.
Oh, and I recognized the voice of Ed Harris right away. Is he being typecasted as mission control now?
In conclusion, Gravity wasn't perfect by any means, but I highly recommend it to everyone, even if just for the incredible visuals. It's a beautiful looking movie. I know that this recommendation is coming a bit late since the movie is probably out of theaters by now. Sorry about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment