Gravity is the 90-minute story of how Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) becomes the only surviving crewmember, on her first space shuttle mission. During their final spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Control warns the crew that debris from a Russian missile strike on an unused satellite has caused a chain reaction of destruction and that they must abort the mission. Shortly there after, our crew loses communication with Houston. Through a series of unfortunate events Dr. Stone finds herself onboard the International Space Station (ISS), the shuttle and crew destroyed or lost in space.

Most of the actors had minor roles in this film except for Sandra Bullock and to a lesser extent George Clooney. I do want to note that Ed Harris was in Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff, two classic movies about space travel, just a little bit of trivia. Clooney did an excellent job playing his character. I actually felt like he was determined to protect the life of Sandra Bullock’s character. Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone, the main, and for most of the film, only character, gave almost as good a performance as Clooney dd. She made me believe in the humanity of her character and really drew out the emotion of Dr. Stone through the things said and the courage shown by her character.

This film features a mostly unknown director to this side of the pond: Alfonso Cuarón. He does a great job at keeping you interested in such a simple story for 90 minutes. For the most part he succeeds in being very realistic in his portrayal of what it is like to be an astronaut. On the other hand about a third of the way into a dream sequence  Dr. Stone is having, I figured out that is a dream when another astronaut gets into the spacecraft with her, something that realistically should have killed her. Instead of an astronaut getting into the craft with her, he could just appear alongside her. Also in keeping with the realism Alfonso uses long tracking shots throughout most of the film. After the first 5 minutes of using tracking shots like this the novelty of them wore off.  Overall he is a good director and I look forward to seeing what project he will do next.

I thought the story was pretty simple, but entertaining. Some parts of the plot I would have done differently. In the beginning of the film we are first introduced to the astronauts during their spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope and the conversations that take place. It would have been a better film if we were introduced to the characters as they are suiting up in the space shuttle, right before their spacewalk. I don’t think the plot should have forced solely on just Dr. Stone as much as they did. How is mission control reacting, show us a farmer(s) watching her reenter earth’s atmosphere, or something else. I am not saying that the emotional roller coaster Dr. Stone go through is boring, but they could have added more and made it more than 90 minutes long.

Overall I would highly encourage you to see Gravity if you have not already seen it. If you come into it with an open mind and let yourself relax, you will get into the movie and invested in the characters. On the other hand it is not a very action packed movie; it’s more of a dramatic film. The director’s attention to realism make you really think that you are in outer space where it is peaceful and quiet, dark, cold and scary.