Complete A-Z list


Gravity (3D)

7/10

Stars: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris (voice)

Director: Alfonso CuarĂ³n

This sci-fi thriller could well have been called Lost in Space, and it's a real seat-gripper for most of the way. A white-knuckle ride in fact for audiences and astronauts alike.

But there are problems too. It gets a bit maudlin towards the end, when you long for the director to get to the climax. And Bullock, excellent though she is - even better than in her Oscar-winning role in The Blind Side - is surely one of NASA's least efficent astronauts on record,

She and Clooney are the only survivors of a five-man crew when their space station is hit by debris from another (collapsed) station. Houston, do they have a problem. Dr Ryan Stone (Bullock) is detached and hurtles into space, but is rescued by team leader Matt Kowalski (Clooney)(. They float through space together in search of neighbouring Russian and Chinese stations, but all the while their oxygen is running low.

The beauty of space is emphasised by the lustrous 3D photography of Emmanuel Lubezki and there are excitements a-plenty in store, underlined by one of the most deafening movie scores in cinema history. A reappearance by Clooney later on may momentarily baffle you as much as it did me, but overall this is a bold and often breathtaking venture into outer space.

David Quinlan

USA 2013. UK Distributor: Warner Brothers. Technicolor.
91 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 04 Nov 2013