G R A V I T Y

Sci-fi films. We've all seen a plethora of these in our lifetime, but how many have you seen with only two actors total with on-screen time? Sure, we've seen "Alien" '79 which has seven actors total in the film, then there's "Moon" '09, which as a few actors, even last year's "John Carter" doesn't have too many actors playing human roles. Now we have "Gravity", and with only two actors, still keeps one riveted.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission. Her commander is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), helming his last flight before retirement. Then, on a routine space walk/repair, disaster strikes--debris from an explosion in space destroys the shuttle, leaving Ryan and Matt stranded in deep space with no link to Earth and no hope of rescue. As their fear turns to panic, especially from Ryan, they realize that the only way home may be to venture further into space.

The rest of the cast consists only of voices, and they are Ed Harris as Mission Control Voice, Orto Ignatiussen as Aningaac Voice, Phadut Sharma as Shariff Voice, a fellow astronaut, Amy Warren as Explorer Captain Voice, and Basher Savage as Russian Space Station Captain Voice.

This was directed with such realistic emotions by Alfonso Cuaron ("Love in the Time of Hysteria" '91, "A Little Princess" '95, "Great Expectations" '98, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" '04, "Paris je t'aime" '06, "Children of Men" '06, "The Shock Doctrine"  (documentary, short) '07). It was written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron. This was simply written, but with the amazing photography, visuals, and the incredible directing, these elements added to this script big time. Speaking of photography, the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki asc/amc ("Bandits" '91, "Like Water for Chocolate" '92, "Reality Bites" '94, "A Walk in the Clouds" '95, "The Birdcage" '96, "Great Expectations" '98, "Meet Joe Black" '98, "Sleepy Hollow" '99, "Ali" '01, "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat" '03, "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" '04, "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" '04, "The New World" '05, "Children of Men" '06, "Burn After Reading" '08, "The Tree of Life" '11, "To the Wonder" '12), is absolutely stunning! This photography looks as though they took a camera crew and went up into space and shot this movie. It is one of the most breathtaking films I have seen in a while. The only film I can say that matches this recently is last year's, "Life of Pi" photographed by Claudio Miranda.

The IMAX and 3D version makes this look even better, so if you want to see this in its grandest splendor, this version should be the one for you, because this film rocks!

Out of 4 Stars: 4                            Rated: PG-13                            91mins.