Ashdoc's review---
The depths of space and the universe beyond---man has always been filled with wanderlust to explore the realms of the unknown....
But uncharted territories are alive with mortal dangers that lurk at every corner , and space is no exception....
In the atmosphereless dark world between two planets , lack of oxygen means that death is just a whisker away....
.....That is what two astronauts ( played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney ) discover while they are spacewalking around the Hubble space telescope to service it....
Their mission is suddenly aborted as news comes in that a Russian ( they still are the villains are they ?? even though the cold war has ended....) missile strike on a defunct satellite has spread debris in space and the debris is fast approaching them....
And as the debris strikes killing the engineer and damaging their space shuttle beyond recovery , the two are left marooned in space with their only hope being the ISS ( International space station ) orbiting 60 miles away---which they hope to reach using the thruster pack that Clooney has....
But even if they reach there , the lifeless debris has equally rentless plans in hand---that of completing an orbit and hitting again , and then again....
So do the two live to escape to earth and tell their tale ??---or does death open her remorseless arms on them as she has done on so many sailors and explorers and astronauts....??
Go and watch the movie for that....
The movie is relatively short , as the events which are shown occur over a span of only few hours....
And all the while during that short time , we are shown breathtaking shots of the earth as seen from space---all blue and with white clouds hovering above it....
....and also shown are shots of sunrise in space---a spectacle which occurs suddenly and dramatically as there is no atmosphere for the light of the Sun to slowly spread....
On one side is the earth and the sun , and on the other is empty space---all dark and lifeless stretching to countless billions of miles beyond....
It is HERE in the space above the earth , that we realize the immensity of the universe and our own insignificance compared to it....
Yes , IMAX 3D produces such an effect---that you feel that you are with Bullock and Clooney in space....
And here time seems to move slowly....
Above all there is calm and peace and quietude---a calm and peace and quietude that is not to be found on earth with it's million mutinies...
There is no sound , just silence....
And as if to make you hear the sound of the silence , the moviemakers have inserted a music score throughout that almost borders on the philosophical....
But amidst all the silence , what the audience wants is action !!
.....And the movie does deliver some action as the two astronauts try to find a way to mother earth....
The photography of the hitting debris and the shots of the space station and of the two astronauts hanging for dear life in space forms a visually spectacular treat that pleasures the senses....
The struggle to move from one space station to another in search of succor forms a gripping narrative....
Acting by both actors is good....
Nice to see and feel the dangers to those who straddle the mists of the cosmos in space suits---while ourselves sitting in comfortable seats in airconditioned theaters....
And nice to know that there are bravehearts out there---exploring the mysteries of space and time...
Verdict---Good .
I might be writing this commentary out of sheer disappointment due to high anticipation, but I will try and not be biased......
I COULDN'T DISAGREE WITH YOU MORE.......lol
I would rate this movie a 2.7 out of 5.
I will admit, I hate 3D movies, I try and never ever see them, because I feel that element has nothing to do with the experience in which what I(again me, and me alone) feel are centrifugal to the driving force of a movie's end product. The 3D experience worked for this movie, because this movie was an experience of high hollywood production (a budget of 100 million dollars with only two actors in limited screen time) and not script, story or really anything that abstract. Sure if you want to rationalize a deeper meaning, and extrapolate something greater from this, you certainly can. There really is no story hear, no character background to speak of, you get a very limited background on Bullock's character that gives her a emotional "hurdle" to overcome, so there is some tension in the movie...but thats about it. I will repeat this, I understand the use of LACK of sound to simulate the space experience (as no sound travels) couple with a symphonic soundtrack, but in my opinion it just didn't work, just didn't f'ing work at all. I am sorry but I felt absolutely zero tension in this movie, zilch, and it wasn't really the fact the acting was bad, its just that you didn't really care one way or the other. Your just given these astronauts in hand, and your just supposed to simply care? I couldn't care for them, and when that happens my interest goes down, and honestly i was rather bored throughout the movie.
Now here's the thing, from a cinematography point of view, the movie was beautiful, simply beautiful, I can't take that away from it. But honestly if you want to see that, check out the Imax nature crap like Blue Planet or something....and at the end of the movie. That is exactly how I felt. When I was younger, like say 20yrs ago or so when your in middle school, for field trips we would go this place called the Omni Theatre. It was a new theatre that was actually made how the IMAX is today, and on it they would run short nature things that made you feel apart of the movie, like traveling close to real lava via aerial footage, or seeing the Alaskan outlay from a helicopter, etc. To me this movie was just that, a very well done and crafter take on spacial perception for the sake of simply just seeing it, that just happen to have a well known actor or two in it. Again, this is not a movie, but an experience.....one that I didn't really care for. And the way the economy is, I wouldn't say go and see it in theatres, because for 90 minutes and what you pay for 3D movies, you will be very upset.....I would say redbox it when it comes out, and I'll stick with that as I'm sure someone will say all is lost without 3D........but that's my story and I'm stickin to it.
2.7 out of 5
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