Gravity
The visual effects are gorgeous. I'm annoyed I didn't catch this in the cinema, because I'm sure it would have been stunning - but thankfully this still stands up as a home video release, unlike other spectacle-driven films I could mention *COUGH*Avatar*COUGH*
This film is clearly trying to evoke 2001 in its weightless feel, and it suceeds. The edge it has on 2001 is that rather than matte-paintings, it has computers with realistic lighting to make the space-backdrop orgasmic. Whilst the spaceships/space-stations and the characters (when not filmed in front of a greenscreen) still don't look as good as 2001 (sorry. Stanley Kubrick still has the best airlock opening scene in cinema history. It's OK: You lost to a genius.) the film suceeds in drawing you into the atmosphere. Also, this is one of those 'everything that can concievably go wrong goes wrong' kind of films - and by the end its gets almost unbearably heart-pounding.
However, this doesn't hide a huge problem with this film: there is no status quo.
For those who are unfamiliar with fancy narrative terminology, the 'status quo' is very similar to 'backstory'. It is what we know to be 'normal' within the story. For example: its established at the start of Star Wars that the Empire is at war with the Rebel Alliance, that the rebels are kinda losing, and that Luke is a humble farmboy with dreams of leaving Tatooine. If the film just opened with Luke being given his fathers lightsaber and then returning to find his family dead and his home destroyed - it would be incredibly sloppy because we don't know what life was like before everything went wrong. Right?
Gravity goes for about two mins before disaster strikes and the film gets going. A narrative only truly beings after the 'inciting incident' (Luke and Obi-Wan listening to Princess Leia's message, Janet Leigh getting murdered in the shower, Katniss volunteering for the Hunger Games, etc) I've long argued that if a film has an inciting incident too early, its not the real inciting incident - because we still haven't settled in yet. You can get away with having the inciting incident occuring within the first few mins in a short narrative - but a feature-length film needs to pace itself more or else we're not going to get a sense of character or poingnancy until much later on. Which in a film is far too late.
Its only halfway through I began to connect with the lead. Whilst I give the film credit for managing this - its still too late. For the first half I was dizzy and confused, just like the characters were. But in a bad way. In a "who are these people and why should I care?" way. And half-way through is way too late. Thats half a film feeling disconnected and uninvolved. Thats half a film too long. I've always said that pretty CGI only gets you so far, and as spectacular as it is, I only began to appreciate it after getting a sense of the characters.
There's a minor character who gets killed off instantly. They actually have a family photo danging off-of him in a last-min attempt to characterise him. Of course, if they had dedicated just a few mins to showing everyone moving around inside the spaceship and interacting with both each-other and the enviroment, we wouldn't need this. We would know who this guy was, and would care when he got a shard of metal right in the face. As it stands, I don't give a crap.
So, 2001 is still the definitive film about being stranded in space, followed by Silent Running (and maybe Moon if you count the Moon as space). Its by no means bad, but I didn't get a sense of the 'Gravity' of the film until much later on.
Yes, I spent all evening thinking of that.
Last edited by Max Butcher (April 27, 2014 (03:20pm))
