I'll get this out the way first: this is the best film I've seen this year and one of the best films I've seen in a long time. It is a total film experience unlike anything I've ever had in a movie theater before. I'm not saying is the best film I've seen in the theater, but the experience of watching Gravity in the theater - in 3D IMAX - is unlike anything I've ever experienced in the theater before and I doubt I will experience again. This is coming from a person who not only hates the 3D format but absolutely despises it with a passion boarding on obsession. I absolutely loathe the format for what it has done to movies because Hollywood thinks that just adding 3D to a movie makes it a more immersed experience. When instead Hollywood has been using it as a gimmick to just milk money from people without the format doing anything to the story line, movie itself, or the overall experience. But not so with Gravity. This movie proves the use of 3D, if done right and only if done right, can it be used to add something to the storyline and movie itself. If you do go see this movie, go see it in 3D IMAX, if you don't you'll be doing yourself a serious disservice on missing one of the most sensory enhanced movie experiences to come around in a long time. Gravity - if watched in 3D IMAX - is a total visual immersion into a world created on the screen. I know that sounds like hyperbole and I know all the reviews for this movie delve into this same subject, but for one of the few times - everything said about this movie is 100% accurate.
Now that I have that out of the way.
This movie also proves that a storyline doesn't have to be overly complex to work. But just make some genuine, simple characters that people care about and what happens next won't matter because those characters will guide the audience to the end of the movie. I won't say these characters are fully three dimensional, but they more than serve their purpose for the movie. A lot of what happens to the main character Ryan Stone is cliched but it doesn't matter because everything blends together just like the long tracking shots Curan uses throughout the movies to help make the world extremely believable. After watching loads of summer blockbuster movies (Iron Man 3, Oblivion, and Star Trek Into Darkness) all of which had story lines that were a mesh of all kinds of things as they seemed to favor explosions, destruction, and all out action for any resemblance of plot, story line, or character. It was refreshing to watch a movie where I could tell the character actually mattered to the director and writer of the movie.
Even after saying all of this though the main star of Gravity is Curan himself. He's fashioned such a movie unlike any movie I've seen in a long time, at least since Stanley Kubrick passed away. Over the years since I've been watching movies, I've come to one conclusion, the director is the main reason a movie is as good or bad as it is. This statement goes back years into the vault of movie history and has been proved time and time again: a director is the blacksmith of the movie. He/she is the one forging what is going to be on screen. Some of the best directors directing right now are David Fincher, Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan, Alfonso Curan, and Steve McQeen. I'm not going to write about all of them but will just say check out their movies and you will see what I mean. But Curan being on this list is no accident. He's made some of the most visually inspiring movies as well as crafting interesting story lines and characters to populate those stories. This movie needs to be seen just on the directing alone. His camera placement and angles used, along with his use of the long tracking shot need to be seen are well worth the price of the ticket.
Bottom line go see this movie in 3D IMAX.
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