Sunday morning a friend and I caught a 3D showing of the new film Gravity. I normally steer clear of 3D showings as I feel to often the effect is used as a gimmick and a way to needlessly boost the ticket prices. However with a few directors, men of vision, I will often give them a short if they can sell me that the 3D is a part of their vision and not just a revenue device. Alfonso is one such director.

Gravity is a film set in orbit high above the Earth. Two astronauts, Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Mat Kowalski I George Clooney) a part of a shuttle team making repairs to the Hubble Space telescope. A disaster occurs stranding Ryan and Kowalski alone and shuttles in orbit. This is a story of survival against extreme odds, and that has been a genre that has always fascinated.  The film follows closely and with a hard edge of forgivingness as the two struggled to find some way out of their dire situation.  It very much has a feel like the classic SF short story ‘The Cold Equations,’ but is sadly not as rigorous in the application of know physics.

That is NOT to say that this film just makes stuff up like most SF films do. No, compared to what we are generally fed from studios this is an amazing movie with a high degree of fidelity to science. It warms my heart that this film is doing great box office and it has the best use of silence in space since Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.

What did the filmmaker’s get wrong? Mostly they imagine orbital space to be one area, not understanding or ignoring that orbital has inclinations and altitudes. The trip as seen in the film is simply not possible. However some of this I can live with. I ignore the words Hubble and simply imagine that the crew is working on a different space telescope, one that lies in the right orbit for the plot.

They also did understand surface tension in space. Tears do not float off a person eyeballs in weightlessness, but rather t stay there, making vision impossible until manually cleared. There is also a bit with momentum that when you think about just is plain wrong – I can’t go into details it would be spoiler material – but it’s a rather larger error in my book.

That said, I was blown away by this movie. The errors do not detract from my enjoyment any more than the multiple errors in Jaws. This is a movie after all and not real life.

This film also has the best zero-gee effects, besting Apollo 13 who used real zero-gee.

What the filmmakers have given us is a vision of space that is unmatched in cinema. Curaon use of 3D is masterful, the best 3D I have ever seen. Not only that his use of the camera of lenses or movement and framing combine to make an experience that is simply beyond words. I was breathless as I watched this movie. Even when I knew something was wrong I was still deeply engaged in the characters and their drama. I gasped out loud several times and that I rarely do. This film is phenomenal.

Do not wait for video.

Do not wait for cable.

Do not see it in 2D.

If you have to drive 60 miles, do it, this film is worth it.v