Gravity

It’s been a long wait for Alfonso Cuaron’s follow up to Children of Men, one of the great dystopian films of the last twenty years. With Gravity, Cuaron has returned with both his attention to detail and elegant use of long shots.

The story of Gravity is straight forward, taking a lot from the survival genre, as we initially follow the crew of Explorer as they attach scientific equipment to a satellite. This changes when a freak accident causes countless pieces of debris to rip through the shuttle and the satellite, effectively leaving them dead in the water, or space. What follows is a desperate race to get to the next satellite or space station that can sustain the team till the debris comes round again.

That pretty much covers all you need to know about Gravity in terms of plot, it is happy to keep it simple and instead focus on the visuals and it’s characters, arguably the films weakness.

But it would be wrong to start anywhere else with Gravity than the quite frankly stunning visuals. Yes, large amounts of it are made up of CGI shots, but this is CGI on another level, it looks real but at the same time never distracts from the rest of the film, something that often ruins CGI heavy films.

The other great visual joy is the use of long takes. The first shot of the film is roughly 15 minutes long. This shot isn’t just of a conversation, or a simple tracking shot of a single character. It shows us the Earth, the main characters as they work on a moving satellite, then follows each of them during the debris storm. It’s worth going to see this film for the opening shot alone.

Now, lets move onto the two characters in this film, Stone and Kowalski, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Bar a few radio voices, these are the only two people you are going to follow for the film.

Bullock is arguably the lead in Gravity, as it her past that is focused on more and she is one that has any sort of character arc. As she fights to survive, we slowly have more and more information drip fed to us about what happened to her back on Earth. Bullock does her best with a somewhat basic script, there is very little character work, in part that is down to the events that follow the debris storm. It would have been interesting for her to have been given something meatier to work with and really build out Stone.

Clooney is as charming and funny as you would expect from him, he is the veteran up there and as a result the part plays to his strengths. His knowledge and experience earns him the right to be so relaxed up there. Clooney builds his character quickly, thanks to some stories he shares with Houston as they are working on the satellite, something like this would have greatly helped Bullocks character.

In Alien, the tag line was ‘In space no one can hear you scream’, and thanks to Gravity, sticking to this scientific fact, you get some really unsettling and discomforting sequences, especially during the action set pieces, when chaos is breaking out visually, but we can’t hear anything except the voices of the astronauts.

I had heard great things about Gravity, going into the cinema, even that it would change cinema. While I enjoyed the film, it did fall a little short of the hype that preceded it. This obviously, isn’t the fault of the film, critics will say what they want and it is easy to be taken in by the hyperbole that has come out of the film.

Gravity is a technically stunning film that will pull people in, but will ultimately divide.

Thor: The Dark World

The first Thor was, and still is may favourite Marvel Studios film, as it didn’t stick to their usual structure and handling of the villain. Instead of focusing on the action, of which there is a lot, it was more interested in the family dynamic of the main characters, Especially the relationship between Thor and Loki, something that would go on to be the best part of The Avengers.

The plot for Thor: The Dark World is fairly straight forward, a race that existed before the creation of the nine realms, the Dark Elves have returned seeking a power source known as the Aether, something that if controlled by their leader Malekith, will return the universe to darkness. This Aether has been locked away for thousands of years, but when Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) stumbles through into another realm and comes across it, she alerts Malekith to where it is. From there on, Thor must return to Earth, protect Jane and stop Malekith.

The films greatest strength, as with the first one is in the interplay between Thor and Loki, played by  Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth superbly. Their chemistry is so good and believable that they feel like brothers. Their first scene in the film together is where the film as a whole starts to pick up. Whether one is better in their respective role compared to the other is beside the point. 

They embrace the characters and make them their own, something that often seals the fate of any comic book film. Without one, this series wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful or interesting as it is.

As with any good comic book film you need a good  villain, someone you can really hate and with Loki being given a very grey area in this film it falls on Malekith to carry the threat. Unfortunately, he rarely does anything to warrant hatred, in fact you will probably barely manage more than casual dislike for him. In all, he kills about five people that I can remember and they are faceless warriors in the prologue.

His hench-elves do the majority of the shooting and stabbing. Christopher Eccleston is not bad in the role, in fact a lesser actor would have barely left an impression, but he certainly could have done with more screen time than he got to make the character more detestable or have him try and justify what he is doing. While not necessary for all villains, this crusade needed some sort of reasoning.

For a film about gods and the end of light in the universe, the action is somewhat downplayed at times, again similar to the first. But here, I really wanted it to go big, especially during an attack on a certain city and the climax of the film. The two major set pieces of the film.  Both sequences have good beginnings and good ends, but not that something special. By these points we are invested in the characters and have just been treated to some excellent characters moments. 

There is no grand moment in these sequences, no truck flip (The Dark Knight) or fight on top of the train (Spider-Man 2) to make the memorable. Where Man of Steel received complaints for the level of destruction and length of its final battle, Thor: The Dark World should be criticized for not going big enough.

By no means is this a negative review of the film, I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun film to go and see. It slips into the upper echelon of Marvel films with ease.

Go to this film for the performances, specifically Hemsworth, Hiddleston and Hopkins, it’s their relationships and family politics that make this film as good as it is.

It looks like the red capes are doing okay this year.