Director Alfonso Cuarón’s out-in-space thriller Gravity is a stunner with its immersive use of 3D and IMAX filming technique. As with Avatar, the film offers audience an adventure that let you think you’re drifting in space along with Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, and crewmate Matt Kowalsky, played by George Clooney.
The film’s opening tagline does give you chill with that ominous soundtrack and acts like a preview of what’s to come next. Next, the opening sequence changes dramatically from a day-to-day science mission (for scientists and not us ordinary people, of course) to a Final Destination-esque satellite debris storm. Suddenly the two main characters are left on their own, without helps to come, they have to find their way back to Earth. In the meantime, the director’s silent treatment to certain sequences or first-person view let the audience experience the helplessness in space. The helplessness and the tension drives the film’s pace and it was a one hell of adventure you’d not see from other film.
There are some metaphors in the film to express the humanity and Earth’s relationship in space, mother to daughter, and even human’s attachment to Earth while exploring the unknown outer space. And the director throws in some humour into the film (like the China-made spacecraft has identical control panel and sequence as the US-made one), also gives the 90-minutes film its drive.
All in all, Gravity would rank itself among the top sci-fi movie for years to come with its low-key yet inspiring script.