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GRAVITY holds a very special place in my heart. Right around a time when no other really exciting movies were coming out, hey! Here comes GRAVITY, ready to shoot you to the stars. While I usually have a strict no 3D policy, seeing GRAVITY in 2D just made me realize how much I was missing out, and I was doing a disservice to the film by seeing it the way I was. So I saw it again in 3D. And again in IMAX. I’ve never done that before. I now have a poster of the film hanging in my room, and as soon as I got my hands on the Blu-Ray I knew I had to be the one to review it for Films in Review.

However, to review it on a website would mean putting my extreme bias aside and looking at the film as a whole. Because I have many friends, friends who have very good taste in movies and opinions that I trust, that couldn’t get into this movie at all. Why is that, I wondered? Well, the story is very simple. We have a crew of astronauts, including Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, working on a satellite while floating around in space. Almost immediately a few space rocks come flying at mach speed towards them, decimating the satellite and leaving Bullock and Clooney as the only survivors. They’re now left flying randomly in the massive, empty abyss that is outer space, to try and find a way to get back to Earth.

“Oh, the movie is nothing but watching two people float around in space for the whole thing”, is what I’ve heard plenty of times. I mean, they’re not wrong, but that’s the beauty of it all. I have a massive respect for films that can make so much out of so little. No dozens of characters, no huge battles going on, just floating in space. Which is also, as far as I see it, the absolute WORST situation that any living being could possibly find themselves in. If at any point in your life you find yourself having a bad time, just think to yourself “Well, at least I’m not drifting around in space” and immediately your problem will seem less horrible than what these two characters are going through.

When I go to movies, which I do a lot, I usually have all these predictions and wishes in my head. And usually I find myself disappointed that the filmmakers didn’t go in a certain direction, or rather that they did and I was able to guess so easily. But here, every prerequisite of my high standards was met. One thing I wished was that there would be no sounds in space, much like real space, and they did that! The only sounds we hear are Bullock’s voice, other voices through the speaker in the suit, or very muffled bumps when she bumped into something. Everything else, like the satellite being blown to bits, is totally silent, which is very eerie. That leaves the soundtrack with a lot of compensation work, but that was done brilliantly too! I bought the soundtrack after seeing the film, it was just so intense.

Alright, my biased self is coming forth again so lets take a few steps back. There are a couple of not-so-fast moments within the film, especially about the science. I’ve heard people talk about many different parts of the film, going “That’s not possible!” and to their credit they’re right. An example would be all that banging into stuff these astronauts are doing? At the speed they were going those bangs and bumps would probably break some bones. This is where Hollywood magic and suspension of disbelief stuff come into play. And as someone who’s usually a massive stickler about this sort of thing, it actually wasn’t until people pointed it out to me before I went “Hang on a minute…yeah, how come Bullock and Clooney didn’t know anything about each other despite the many months of training they clearly engaged in before being sent up into space?” I don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter in the long run I suppose. But the fact that people are taking so much time to think about these things is a statement of some kind.

I love GRAVITY, I really do, and even if it’s not your cup of tea I still recommend at least one viewing. I was on the edge of my seat the duration: perhaps you will be, too. And if you do enjoy it, get the Blu-Ray; the supplementals are out of this world, even going as far as breaking down specific shots and showing how they got them. For me, that’s icing on the intergalactic cake. Nothing could ever equal seeing it on the big screen though, and I’m so glad I got the chance while I still could. This is a film that 2013 will be remembered for, and in 50 years time it might even go down as a classic. Bottom line, five stars, two thumbs up, check it out.