Gravity [2013] (English): Visually Stunning 3D effects in Zero-G

After watching Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuarón, I was eager to watch his newest release Gravity. And the wait was worth it!

For a movie named 'Gravity', most of it takes place in an absence of it. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are a part of a team of astronauts on a mission to do some repair-work on the famous Hubble Space telescope, when disaster strikes. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are the only survivors. And in the cold, dark and empty loneliness of Space, with communications and vital instruments down, they have to battle against seemingly insurmountable odds to survive and get back to Earth.

If I were to describe the movie in minimum amount of words, I would call it "visually stunning". I am glad I watched it in 3D. People associate 3D with action scenes where fast moving things hurtling towards the camera appear as if they are actually coming straight at you. I was under the same misconception until I saw the movie Sanctum in 3D. Much of that movie is shot within caves and under water, where most of the scenes have a dark background. This makes the feebly illuminated portions stand out. And it looks even better in 3D, where the contours appear so well-defined. The lights playing over the huge caverns, or on the surface of the water way above (when the camera is under water), or on the bubbles floating around, look almost magical in their clarity, thanks to the 3D effects. Same is the case with Gravity.

In Space, everything is either dark, or very brightly illuminated by the naked sun rays. This contrasting interplay of light and darkness makes things stand out very nicely in 3D. Most of the movie takes place in orbit around the Earth. The slow graceful movements of the astronauts in space is captured very nicely. So are the various objects, large and small, floating around in empty space. It all adds up to a very stunning visual experience.

The views of the Earth as the backdrop, from far above in orbit are stunning. So is the depiction of the space shuttle and the ISS. The movie depicts the rare beauty of the Earth and the nature from space, even as the tense story-line moves from one catastrophe to the other.

In spite of being a Sci-Fi movie, it does not have your distant planets, fancy star-ships, aliens or super-advanced technology. The director has tried to keep it as near to the present-day science as possible. Though I am not sure how much of the science portrayed in the movie is realistic or actually plausible, it does not seem improbable to the layman. The harsh and dangerous environment of space is the villain and the indomitable human spirit to survive against all odds is the true hero of the movie.

For most of its part, the story hurtles along at break-neck speed. It does slow down a bit in the second half, which many of you might find a bit boring. But its worth the wait as the story once again picks up speed as it approaches the climax.

The characters of both the protagonists are neither too shallow, nor overly well-defined. But at least they are sketched realistically. Both Sandra Bullock and George Clooney do justice to the characters with their great acting skills. Sandra Bullock's acting is especially nice.

The story is not as complex as some other Space disaster-survival movies like Apollo 13. But the visual effects are ground-breaking and worth the money.

My Ratings: 3.5

Children of Men [2006] (English): A future without hope... Or is it?

Our life, the world we build for us, our entire system works on our hope for the future. All our plans, expectations, speculations are based from future's point of view. But what if there was no future to look forward to? With no hope for the coming tomorrow, our system would slowly but surely decay and collapse. This is the premise on which Children of Men is based.

The movie starts with the protagonist viewing a news report in a bar. Its the news of a famous celebrity who passed away. Its a kid. He was famous because he was the last kid to be born. In the future, mankind has inexplicably lost the ability to give birth. Everyone has, for some reason become sterile. And this has lead to a slow but certain Global Meltdown. As the protagonist comes out of the bar and walks away, there is a blast in the bar. It is one of the regularly carried out arsonous acts carried out by the Foogies (for Refugees) against a totalitarian government regime.

This is how the movie starts. The lead protagonist's ex-wife asks him a favour. He has to arrange for a pass to get someone out of the country. He manages to get the pass, but it turns out, he will have to personally escort that someone. Somewhere on the way, things take a turn for the worse. And while trying to cope with the sudden turn of events, he realizes that his mission is much more important and critical than it appears.

The story is based in a hypothetical future. So it certainly is a Sci-Fi movie, but without the aliens and the hi-tech stuff. And the story never really explores the why and the how of the apparently sudden sterility of the entire human race. It has some very breath-taking action. But its not your usual action flick. The direction ensures that the main theme of the movie never gets lost in the action scenes and the depiction of a future gone bad.

The movie starts with a bang but soon looses momentum for a while, as the stage is set, and the character-building happens. This initial character and story-building is nice if you don't mind the slow pace. And then suddenly the movie picks up speed. And then it hardly ever slows down...

The protagonist has to get involved in lots of action and intrigue. But he is never depicted as an action hero. He is a normal empathetic human who is doing what has to be done, like a normal human. neither are the antagonist portrayed as totally evil. The characters in this movie are more realistic shades of grey, instead of the usually shallow black and white ones that most simplified movie plots depict.

The director Alfonso Cuarón (director of the famous recent movie Gravity), pretty nicely depicts a world where hope is lost and all is shot to hell. And yet, we are shown the human side of things, where common people try to survive against all hopelessness and unnecessary violence. Even the violence is depicted with empathy, where we feel the unnecessariness of it, and the shock of its sad aftermath. And in spite of its dark dreary background, the movie gives us a message: that however dark and hopeless the future may appear, there is always hope...

On the whole its a pretty decent flick. Much better than your run of the mill Sci-fi action movies that attract so much audience. This is certainly not for everyone. But if you like sensitive movies, that add a pack of pretty slick action, pace and suspense, then you will certainly enjoy this movie the way I did.

My Ratings: 4

October Sky [1999] (English): Some dreams do come true

It was a dark winter evening. Just past 7. The room was dark, as I put on the TV. It was the year I had to take a drop during my Engineering studies due to too many KTs. My confidence was running low and I found myself in a self-imposed house-arrest.

So there I was, unable to concentrate on the studies, with my mood as dark as the evening, I put on HBO. The movie had just started. I had missed the name by seconds. I was about to switch the channel, when the screen told me that this particular anonymous flick was based on a true story... 'Oh, is it?' I thought with mild interest and decided to stick around and see what it was about...

To my surprise, the very first scene started with the radio broadcasting the launch of Sputnik - the first man-made satellite to be launched into space... From that point on, I was hooked.

During my childhood years, I had a fascination for space and space-travel... So any movie having anything to do with space was bound to capture my interest... So I stayed on for a while... And ended up watching the entire movie....

The start is a bit slow. Its where the stage is set, the characters sketch themselves, slowly taking shape as they blend into the story.

Its a biopic of a boy named Homer H Hickam. Homer is born and brought up in Coalwood, a typical American "coal town" - a town built around the coal mine. A town where each boy follows his fathers footsteps into the coal mines as a miner. Only one lucky guy will escape this predestined fate - the one who can bag the sports scholarship.

Homer is no good at sports, unlike his brother. His father, a supervisor, who has spent all of his career in the mine itself - for whom mine is the only way of life - wants Homer to either win a sports scholarship or follow his footsteps into the mine...

Overshadowed by his brother's achievements, stifled by his dad's expectations and unable to come to grips with the fact that he may well have to spend the rest of his life working in the mine, life looks grim for poor Homer...

Then one day, a single little event changes the straight predestined course of his life. On an evening in October, he sees a majestic shooting star in the sky. But this is no ordinary celestial body. Its the first man-made object to revolve in orbit round the earth.Its the recently launched Russian satellite Sputnik. As he gazes with awe at this man-made wonder in the sky, he suddenly realizes what he wants to do in his life...

Does a movie require bad guys, super heroes, gorgeous heroines, romance, disaster and the climactic fight between good and evil, to be entertaining? This movie proves that age old formula wrong. Here dream and determination are the heroes, and difficulties, obstacles and fate are the villains.

It glorifies a boy who dreams to be different. A father who wants the best for his son. The clash between a fathers expectations and his sons dreams. A teacher who inspires her students and shows them that sports is not everything, and that science can be a fun hobby too.

Its a movie about an era that's now long gone. And yet it manages to entertain as well as inspire even today...

May be I like this movie more than others will. It still featured at the top of my most favourite movies list. And there is a reason why...

It was my dream to become an astronaut or at least an astronomer. As I grew up, I went for Engineering instead. It was my dad's dream, and I just went along with the flow. And the dream remained just that - a dream.

And here I was at a point where I seriously doubted my choice of a career and how good or bad I was in it... It was at this low point of my life, that I stumbled upon this gem of a movie... Not that it changed me for the better. But it gave me hope that some dreams do come true...

My rating: 5