Gravity (2013) Review

I had seen the coming attractions for Gravity.  It was the kind of movie I’d be interested in seeing, but not necessarily in renting.  When my parents got it from Netflix, they kept it over the weekend, giving me a chance to watch it myself.  The story goes that Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, and Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, are making repairs to some orbiting equipment.  When disaster strikes, they have to make it to the International Space Station to get home.  I was mostly curious to see how they made a 91-minute film from this.

Normally, I’m accustomed to going into greater detail about the plot, but there’s not much to describe.  After the Russians destroy one of their own satellites, the debris destroys the shuttle that Stone and Kowalski were planning on taking back home.  Kowalski has thrusters, which he can use to get the two of them to the ISS, which has escape pods.  Unfortunately, one has been used and the other is in no condition to be used safely, making the only remaining option a nearby Chinese escape pod.

Much of the movie comes from suspense.  Unless they can make it to an escape pod, there are three ways the movie could end for the two characters:  They could drift off in to space and die a cold death, they could drift towards Earth and die a fiery death during reentry, or they could continue in orbit and hope the debris doesn’t get them.  Unfortunately, Kowalski wasted a lot of his jet fuel having fun around the equipment they were supposed to be repairing.  (I can’t say I blame him.  I wouldn’t expect Russian space debris, either.)

I could also see this being a vehicle for 3-D effects.  I’ve always hated that DVDs tend not to have a 3-D version.  I imagine that the big problem is not wanting to have to ship special glasses.  Then again, it might be something that they could sell separately.  (Maybe free 3-D glasses with an upgrade?)  I would have like to have seen this movie in 3-D.  I probably would have watched that version if I had been given the option.

There was some notoriety when Neil deGrasse Tyson pointed out a few mistakes that the movie made.  )He later pointed out that the movie got a lot right, including how the debris behaved.)  Admittedly, though, a few liberties were taken for the sake of the story.  I don’t think it would have been as suspenseful if they had stuck to all the laws of physics.

I should warn you that people do die.  This isn’t ruining anything, as it happens in the first few minutes.  I bring this up because we get to see them after they’ve been killed and it’s not pretty.  If you’re squeamish about this at all, you may want to consider that.  Overall, I would probably only recommend this to someone if they’re a fan of Bullock of Clooney.  I probably wouldn’t have watched this if my parents hadn’t rented it.

Will this review ever see the light of day? (Dark City Review)

Note:  This is another review that was originally posted on Epinions.com   I've reposted it here with a few modifications.


I had heard about Dark City from someone somewhere and for some reason, I thought I’d rent it. The premise looked pretty good. A guy named Murdoch wakes up to find that he has apparently committed a murder, but has no memory of it. I figured that at worst, I’d have something to watch on a night when nothing was on TV. I’m still debating if reruns would have been better.

The premise is pretty simple. This dying race of aliens, known as The Strangers, has taken a group of humans to experiment on. The race is dying and somehow thinks that humanity may be able to save them. They’re trying to see if they can figure out what the human soul is. They’re conducting a grand experiment that seems to hinge on Murdoch.

It turns out that Murdoch has some sort of special ability. I’m not going to say what that is, but it allows him to throw a monkey wrench in to The Strangers’ plan. This is in part because he likes to ask a lot of questions, such as why no one can tell him how to leave town or how it is than an entire day goes by without anyone having seen the sun. (I think this special ability was supposed to provide the answer to the Stranger's problem.)

I have to admit that it’s a very confusing story. It’s never explained why the human soul was supposed to provide a solution. The Strangers are part of some sort of collective species, kind of like the Borg from Star Trek. They may think that individuality is the way to go. It’s possible that their collective nature is what doomed them. I think that it was The Strangers intent to program humans with their memories so as to allow something of their race to continue on.

It’s also never explained where the rest of humanity is. You’re left to assume that the Earth is still out there somewhere and that The Strangers just took a small group of test subjects. The thing is that no one can remember anything other than what The Strangers fed them and The Strangers aren’t in the mood to explain anything. The one human character that’s not part of the experiment, Dr. Schreber, erased a good portion of his memories so as not to be fed new ones every night.

The movie reminded me of a book called The Identity Matrix by Jack L. Chalker. I have to say that I liked the book more than this one. I don’t really know what it was. It’s like I want to like it, but something just didn’t click with me. I’ll probably end up watching the movie again in a few years and wondering why I didn’t like it sooner.