By Christopher Null, Editor

Courtesy of Photobucket user q3030mixtapes

Space; the final frontier. This is the movie of the year to hold more weight than most space adventures. Alfonso Cuarón, director of films such as “Children of Men” and “Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban”, blasts off with wild ambition when directing superstars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

If you were like me when you saw the movie trailer and thought “This film will either be dull or too farfetched to be a good movie”, I tell you now that you are wrong. The movie opens up with some haunting facts about life in space; informing the audience of just how dangerous living without gravity or an atmosphere can be. The absolute stillness of space really takes into account the condition of the theater you are sitting in when you watch this film. When the space shuttle hosting Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock), a medical engineer on her first visit to space, and Lieutenant Matt Kowalski (Clooney), a veteran space traveler, begins to drift closer to screen, the action ignites.

Although a handful of elements in the film may be perceived as unlikely, it doesn’t strain too far from believable. One aspect of the film that helps it stand out is the way the majority of the film is shot. A better part of the movie is shot in large consecutive shots; that means no cuts or fades between shots. The camera just kept rolling for long periods of time capturing one beat of action to the next in perfect sequence. Not only does this method keep the audience deeply focused to the movie, it also praises the actors’ abilities as actors to act. What I mean is, the director had to pick only one take of a scene to use; unlike most movies where they can cut and slice various takes and paste them together to produce their movie how they want to. With that said, there are times in the movie where you only hear the actor’s voice and not see their face within the extended shot. This does add more wiggle room in the editing process.

Another good part of the film is its characters. Sandra Bullock is notorious for her tomboy like behavior in the roles she plays just as George Clooney is for his big plan, storyteller personality. In “Gravity”, both play their roles sincerely with a touch of those notorieties mixed in but portrayed wonderfully in the story.

“Gravity” is a good mix of sci-fi and drama. The characters have well-developed backgrounds and the story is depicted with fantastic technological features. The special effects of Earth to space stations are surreal and feel almost tangible. Outer space may be a mystery to most of us, but this is one film to bring our curiosity down to earth.