The Witches (2020) review (HBO Max)

 

When it comes to some of the most prominent authors in literary history, one whose work has consistently stood the test of time is Roald Dahl. From 1942 up until his death in 1990, Dahl was responsible for penning a whole bunch of classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. To date, his various novels and short stories have sold over 250 million copies worldwide and are widely touted for their creative imagery and their unabashed knack for dark humor to contrast with their primarily whimsical nature. Many of his works have been adapted to the big screen over the years although it is worth noting that, when he was alive, Dahl was usually quite critical about them for the various changes that were made to his stories. This included the last adaptation that was released before his death, 1990’s The Witches, which was directed by Nicolas Roeg and notably produced by none other than Jim Henson. Dahl, however, was not too pleased with this adaptation of his 1983 novel, namely due to its drastically different ending. Nevertheless, the film was well-received by critics and while it wasn’t exactly a box-office hit, it has since gone on to become a cult classic of its time. But now there’s a new adaptation of The Witches upon us, and just like the 1990 film, this one is star-studded on both sides of the camera. For starters, the cast is headlined by a pair of Oscar winners in Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer. And as for the behind-the-scenes crew, the film serves as the latest outing from director Robert Zemeckis, AKA the man who’s given us films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, and this reviewer’s favorite film of all-time, Back to the Future. However, Zemeckis isn’t the only big-name filmmaker attached to this project as it was originally proposed as a stop-motion film directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who instead serves as a producer alongside his good friend Alfonso Cuaron while also being one of the credited screenwriters alongside Zemeckis and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. And while it may be far from being the best project that any of these men have ever worked on, it still manages to be a decently charming family flick that delivers a solid new take on Roald Dahl’s classic story.

In 1968, a young boy (Jahzir Kadeem Bruno) loses both of his parents in a car crash. He’s then sent to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer) in Alabama, and while it does take a while, she does help him start to overcome his grief. However, their idyllic lifestyle is soon threatened when the young boy has his first encounter with a witch. And since his grandmother is quite familiar with witches after seeing one when she was a child, she tells him everything that he needs to know about them; namely, that witches are really demonic creatures and are notorious for hating children and doing anything they can to get rid of them. Thus, to avoid any further witch-based encounters, the young boy and his grandmother promptly decide to take a vacation and stay at a prestigious hotel. Unfortunately, they end up arriving at the exact same time as a whole group of witches led by the most powerful witch in the world, the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). The young boy ends up eavesdropping on their meeting, where the Grand High Witch reveals her newest scheme to get rid of all the children in the world by using a special potion to turn them into mice. And to make matters worse, the young boy is then discovered by the Grand High Witch, who immediately uses her potion to turn him into a mouse. Now stuck in mouse form, the young boy crosses paths with two other kids that were recently turned into mice, food-loving Bruno (Codie-Lei Eastick) and a girl named Mary (voiced by Kristin Chenoweth), who is revealed to be the mouse that the young boy had been keeping as a pet for the past few months. With both their help and his grandmother’s, the young boy now finds himself in a time-sensitive situation as he and his friends work to stop the Grand High Witch’s sinister plan before anyone else ends up suffering the same fate as them.

While it may be easy to simply call this film a ‘remake’ of its 1990 counterpart, this new version of The Witches does manage to avoid being a straight-forward retelling of its classic story, whether it’s by having African-American protagonists or revealing that the kid’s pet mouse was a transformed kid as well. Plus, if there’s one advantage that this film has over the previous film, it’s that its ending is a lot more faithful to the book since, as noted earlier, Dahl took significant issue with the 1990 film for having a more traditional ‘happy ending’. Granted, the changes that this film makes does mean that it takes a lot more liberties with its source material than even the 1990 film did, but at the very least, this isn’t a case like Artemis Fowl where the changes that were made significantly alter the story beyond recognition. At the end of the day, most of these changes are simply from a cosmetic standpoint, and for the most part, the film does an excellent job of maintaining Roald Dahl’s whimsical style that delivers a good-natured adventure where the kids are the heroes but is still allowed to have the delightfully twisted dark humor that Dahl was well-known for. And while I’m aware that the film has gotten some criticism for supposedly being ‘too scary for children’, I’d argue that it’s relatively tame compared to all the other family-friendly films over the years that have gained notoriety for their darker moments (and yes, this includes the 1990 adaptation of The Witches). All this makes up for the fact that the film ends up feeling like a routine affair for the filmmakers who are attached to it, especially Robert Zemeckis. It’s not that the film is ‘bad’ or anything since, if Zemeckis’ past work wasn’t enough of an indication, he’s not that kind of director. It’s just that, like what happened when Tim Burton made his remake of Planet of the Apes in 2001, this is one of those instances where, if you didn’t know that this was directed by the guy who made Back to the Future, you probably wouldn’t have figured that out until the credits because it could’ve been done by anybody.

For many people, one of the best aspects of the 1990 film was Angelica Huston’s standout turn as the Grand High Witch. But while that may have been an undeniably tough act to follow, Anne Hathaway proves that she’s more than capable of taking on that daunting task. With an over-exaggerated accent that’s matched by an equally over-the-top performance, Hathaway is clearly having a lot of fun as the main antagonist. And sure, it’s completely understandable if some may find her performance to be a bit too campy at times, but at the end of the day, she’s still one of the best parts of this film. This strong performance from Hathaway is then perfectly matched by Octavia Spencer’s equally terrific turn as the main protagonist’s grandmother. Spencer has always been well-known for playing characters like this who are very much good-natured protagonists but can still dish out some tough love when necessary, usually through some delightfully spunky snark. And while he’s not in the film too much, we also get the always-reliable Stanley Tucci as the manager of the hotel that all the main characters end up at who mostly spends his time trying to deal with the eccentric gestures of the Grand High Witch. Finally, to close out the main cast, we have newcomer Jahzir Kadeem Bruno as the main protagonist who, just like in the original novel (and not the 1990 film where he was named Luke), is unnamed. He is credited as ‘Hero Boy’, however, which is rather ironic because that makes him the second main character in a Robert Zemeckis film to be called that since that’s also what the main protagonist of The Polar Express was credited as. Nevertheless, while this may only be his first leading role in a film (that and his character is a mouse for half of it), Bruno instantly makes a strong first impression with some solid charisma for his age.

While it’s admittedly been a while since I’ve done so, I did read The Witches when I was younger. It was one of many Roald Dahl books that I read growing up alongside other classics such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, you may be surprised to learn that I never watched its 1990 film adaptation. Simply put, it was just one of those films that was never on my radar back then. As such, it goes without saying that I don’t have the kind of connection to it that many others from my generation have, which has clearly had a major influence on folks’ thoughts towards this new adaptation. I mean, if the usual reception towards Disney’s recent string of live-action remakes wasn’t enough of an indication, folks are always a lot stricter when it comes to remakes. And yet, from the perspective of someone who hasn’t seen the 1990 adaptation of The Witches, I’d argue that this new version of the story is a genuinely harmless affair. It avoids being a direct carbon copy of its predecessor and even manages to deliver a more faithful take on the novel’s ending… even if the changes that it makes everywhere else are more prominent than those from the 1990 film. Really, at the end of the day, the worst thing that I can say about this film is that it’s arguably the most by-the-numbers feature that Robert Zemeckis has ever directed. To be fair, his direction is solid as always, but at the same time, I will admit that I’m curious about how this film would’ve turned out had it been the Guillermo Del Toro-directed stop-motion film that it was originally planned to be. Ultimately, though, the film does manage to be a nice showcase of Roald Dahl’s brilliant storytelling and could very well serve as a gateway for younger generations to experience the rest of his work.

Rating: 3.5/5

91st Academy Awards - Results + Recap Post

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – FIRST MAN

BEST EDITING – BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – BLACK PANTHER

BEST MAKEUP/HAIRSTYLING – VICE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – ROMA

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – BLACK PANTHER

BEST SOUND EDITING AND BEST SOUND MIXING – BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – SHALLOW (A STAR IS BORN)

BEST SCORE – BLACK PANTHER

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – BAO

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT – SKIN

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT – PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE

BEST DOCUMENTARY – FREE SOLO

BEST FOREIGN FILM – ROMA (From Mexico)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – BLACKKKLANSMAN

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – GREEN BOOK

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – REGINA KING (IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – MAHERSHALA ALI (GREEN BOOK)

BEST ACTRESS – OLIVIA COLMAN (THE FAVOURITE)

BEST ACTOR – RAMI MALEK (BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY)

BEST DIRECTOR – ALFONSO CUARON (ROMA)

BEST PICTURE – GREEN BOOK

THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW

Well, there was certainly quite a lot of controversy surrounding this year’s Academy Awards, which ended up being the first ceremony since the 61^st Academy Awards in 1989 to not have a host. Originally, Kevin Hart was set to host, but he ended up backing out as a way of apologizing for a collection of homophobic tweets that he had posted in 2010 and 2011. Thus, after a month of trying to find a replacement, the Academy ultimately decided to go without a host this year. But because of this, there was some speculation about how this would affect the ceremony. As noted earlier, the last Oscars ceremony without a host was in 1989… and yet, it has commonly been regarded as one of the worst Oscars of all-time. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case with this year’s Oscars as the lack of a host surprisingly helped to keep the ceremony running smoothly. There weren’t any major skits, like Ellen DeGeneres ordering pizza for the crowd or Jimmy Kimmel announcing a contest where the one with the shortest acceptance speech would also win a free jet ski. Instead, it was just the award presenters and the performances of the Best Original Song nominees, and while I’m usually okay with Oscar skits and montages, I will also admit that not having any of them this year was probably for the best. If anything, it did help deal with one of the most common criticisms of the Oscars as this year’s ceremony ultimately clocked in at a run-time of three hours and twenty-two minutes, effectively making it the shortest ceremony since the 84^th Academy Awards. Plus, this ended up being a better way of condensing the Oscars than the various ways in which the Academy had planned on accomplishing this.

Yes, folks, the big controversies surrounding this year’s event mainly stemmed from the various ways in which the Academy attempted to keep it from going on too long. First, there was the announcement that only two of the nominees for Best Original Song would be performed, which is undoubtedly a bizarre idea for a show that wasn’t even going to have a host. Ultimately, though, after some backlash, this decision was reversed and four of the nominated songs were performed, with the only exception being ‘All the Stars’ from Black Panther supposedly due to scheduling conflicts with its lead performer, Kendrick Lamar. Things only proceeded to get more complicated, however, when the Academy announced that it was planning on cutting four awards from the main broadcast; Cinematography, Live-Action Short, Editing, and Makeup/Hairstyling. Instead of being presented during the show itself, they would’ve only been shown during commercial breaks. As you might have guessed, this incurred an even greater backlash from the film industry, but just like the plan for the Best Original Song nominees, this idea was thankfully nixed. And don’t even get me started on how mad people got at the proposed new category that would’ve honored ‘popular films’ like Black Panther. Ultimately, though, I do feel that this exemplifies something that I’ve been saying for a while now about how we really shouldn’t be taking shows like the Oscars THIS seriously. To be clear, I’m not defending any of the proposed changes that the Academy had tried to put into motion as I’m very much glad that they didn’t cut out any of the awards or musical performances. However, I do think that these proposed ideas were partially spawned from the Academy being immensely pressured into trying to address some of the common criticisms that the internet tends to have about the Oscars without having any of the time that was necessary to come up with a plan that made sense.

 

As I’ve said plenty of times before (and will surely have to say again in the years to come), this is just one award show. It is not meant to be the ‘end all, be all’ when it comes to what qualifies as the best of the world of film in any given year. The same can be said about other award shows because they’re just as subjective as film itself. Outside of some rare ties, only one film, actor/actress, director, or technical aspect wins in their respective categories; and yet, that doesn’t mean that whatever wins is automatically the ‘best’ of that year. That’s why I don’t get worked up over snubs anymore because it really isn’t that big of a slight against the film or performance in question as the internet always makes it out to be. All of this certainly applies to this year’s Oscars results, which saw Green Book take home Best Picture despite all the controversy that it’s been embroiled in over its alleged historical inaccuracy and ties to the ‘white savior narrative’ trope. Bohemian Rhapsody, which ended up winning the most Oscars of the night with 4, has also proven to be highly controversial due to it not being that well-received by critics, its apparent downplaying of Freddie Mercury’s LGBT lifestyle, and all the baggage of its director Bryan Singer’s various sexual assault allegations in the era of #MeToo. At the very least, there were some historical victories during this year’s ceremonies; for example, Ruth Carter and Hannah Beachler became the first African-Americans to win Oscars in Costume Design and Production Design, respectively, for their work on Black Panther. Thus, it could be said that the current state of the Oscars is just like the current state of the film industry in the wake of the Weinstein scandals. There’s clearly still a lot of progress to be made when it comes to a fully diversified industry, but at the very least, some progress has occurred.

And now we turn to the biggest highlights of this year’s ceremony. Unlike previous years, however, I’m not really going to categorize these moments as ‘best’ or ‘worst’.

OPENING PERFORMANCE BY QUEEN AND ADAM LAMBERT

This year’s ceremony kicked off with a musical performance by Queen and Adam Lambert, the latter of whom has been one of Queen’s primary collaborators since 2011 and had a small cameo as a truck driver in Bohemian Rhapsody. Together, they performed ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are the Champions’ to the highly enthusiastic Oscars crowd as best exemplified by a reaction shot of a high-spirited Javier Bardem. There was even a nice little tribute to Freddie Mercury when his image appeared on the screen at the end. All in all, it was a nice way to start off a show that wasn’t going to have a main host. Even with that in mind, though…

MAYA RUDOLPH, TINA FEY, AND AMY POEHLER’S ‘OPENING MONOLOGUE’

The first official presenters of the night were Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler, and while Fey and Poehler have had plenty of experience as award show hosts having hosted three Golden Globe ceremonies, the trio quickly reassured the audience that they were not the hosts. They also noted that there wouldn’t be a ‘Best Popular Film’ category, no awards were going to be presented during commercials, and that Mexico wasn’t going to pay for the wall. Still, the strong comedic chemistry amongst the three proved that they certainly could’ve proven to be good hosts. In fact, there were a few other instances of dynamic presenter duos that showed promising potential as hosts, including the duo of Awkwafina and John Mulaney, who presented the Oscars for Best Animated Short and Best Documentary Short, and Creed co-stars Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson, who presented the Oscar for Best Original Score. But as I noted before, the lack of a host didn’t end up being that big of a loss in the long run. Thus, it’s ultimately up to the Academy to decide whether to have hosts or not for future ceremonies.     

MELISSA MCCARTHY, BRIAN TYREE HENRY, AND THEIR EXTRAVAGANT ATTIRE

Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry presented the Oscar for Best Costume Design and did so in the most appropriate manner possible by wearing elaborate costumes that featured elements from all 5 nominees. Henry sported Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger hairdo from Black Panther and Emily Blunt’s hat from Mary Poppins Returns while McCarthy sported a wig that mirrored the reveal of Queen Elizabeth I’s thinning hairline from Mary Queen of Scots, a hat from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and a dress that was covered with bunnies a la The Favourite. And as ridiculous as these two get-ups looked, the two managed to play it all completely straight-faced.

KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY AS MARY POPPINS

To introduce Bette Midler’s performance of ‘The Place Where Lost Things Go’ from Mary Poppins Returns, Keegan-Michael Key had his own Mary Poppins moment by floating down from the rafters via umbrella. Need I say more about how awesome this moment is?  

WAYNE, GARTH, AND BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ the song saw a major resurgence in popularity in 1992 thanks to the comedy Wayne’s World, where main protagonists Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) rocked out to the classic Queen tune in their car. Myers would then go on to appear in this year’s Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, which included a scene where he directly references Wayne’s World by arguing that the song would not be one that “teenagers can crank up the volume in their car and bang their heads to”. And while I will openly admit that it is one of the most undeniably blatant uses of an in-joke in recent memory, it’s still a memorable moment from the film for better or worse. The Oscars then proceeded to pay tribute to the classic scene from Wayne’s World by having Myers and Carvey come out together to introduce Bohemian Rhapsody as one of this year’s Best Picture nominees. Sure, it was mostly just a reunion for these two SNL alumni, but I do get a kick out of film-related reunions like this.    

MARVEL WINS SOME OSCARS

Now admittedly, this is more about the Oscars results than moments from the show itself, but I was quite glad to see that Black Panther managed to get some love at this year’s ceremony. It was the first superhero film to get nominated for Best Picture, and while it ultimately didn’t win that one, it did end up winning for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score. I was especially glad to see it win some awards after reading one of Hollywood Reporter’s ‘Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot’ articles that revealed some of the Academy’s voters’ picks in an anonymous fashion. One of the voters explicitly noted that he didn’t vote for Avengers: Infinity War for Best Visual Effects because “like a lot of people in the Academy, [he] doesn’t respect money-grabs”. And while this comment was primarily directed towards Avengers, he also described Black Panther as “a Marvel comic book movie” that’s “not much better than any of the others”. Reading this legitimately made me worried that Black Panther was going to get ignored just because it was from the genre that, for the past few years, has been the subject of mockery from those who take issue with its domination of the current pop cultural zeitgeist. Thankfully, though, that was not the case. Plus, Black Panther wasn’t the only Marvel film to win big that night as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won Best Animated Feature. Simply put, it was a big night for Marvel Studios and the MCU, which was then perfectly topped off with the late Stan Lee being honored during the annual ‘In Memoriam’ section.

LADY GAGA AND BRADLEY COOPER’S PERFORMANCE OF ‘SHALLOW’

Thanks to the Academy reversing their decision to cut out most of the performances of the Best Original Song nominees, we got to witness another excellent round of musical performances. Jennifer Hudson performed “I’ll Fight” from the documentary RBG, Bette Midler made a special appearance performing “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns, and David Rawlings and Gillian Welch performed “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. But for many people, the biggest highlight of them all when it came to the musical performances was seeing Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga perform “Shallow”, which would ultimately end up winning the Oscar that night, from A Star is Born. And it was certainly an unforgettable moment with a notably different spin to it compared to the other Best Original Song nominees because no one came out to introduce it. Instead, Cooper and Gaga simply walked onto the stage to perform their film’s signature tune with the same emotional intensity that helped to make A Star is Born one of the biggest hits of the year.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON AND SPIKE LEE ARE BEST BUDS

Samuel L. Jackson has had a long career in the film industry, and one of his most frequent collaborators has been Spike Lee thanks to appearances in films like Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, and Chi-Raq. And when Jackson and Brie Larson came out to announce the winners of the Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars, Jackson immediately reminded everyone of his friendship with the veteran filmmaker. For starters, Jackson informed Lee that his hometown team, the Knicks, had won that night, officially breaking their 18-game losing streak at Madison Square Garden. And when Lee and his BlacKkKlansman co-writers ended up winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Jackson couldn’t contain his excitement for the results, culminating in Lee bear-hugging Jackson when the former got up onstage.

And lastly…

GREAT SPEECHES

As is the case with any Oscars ceremony, there were some great speeches from the winners. Some of the most notable speeches include…

*Spike Lee encouraging everyone to be “on the right side of history” and “do the right thing” (“You know I had to get that in there!”) for the 2020 Presidential Election.

*Rami Malek talking about his identity as the son of immigrants and how it led to him connecting with Freddie Mercury, who was also an immigrant. There was also a sweet shout-out to his Bohemian Rhapsody co-star/girlfriend Lucy Boynton.

*Bao director Domee Shi (AKA the first female director of a Pixar short) encouraging girls “who hide behind their sketchbooks” to not “be afraid to tell your story to the world”.

*Black Panther costume designer Ruth Carter paying tribute to Spike Lee, who helped her get her start in the film industry. “Marvel may have created the first black superhero, but through costume design, we turned him into an African king.”

*Black Panther production designer Hannah Beachler arguably had the most emotional speech of the night as she thanked director Ryan Coogler, who she’s worked with on all his films, for helping make her “a better designer, a better story-teller, and a better person”. She also thanked Marvel for “supporting their vision” and concluded with the following; “I did my best and my best is good enough.”

*After winning the Oscar for Best Original Song, Lady Gaga thanked Bradley Cooper for believing in her and her fellow songwriters Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt, further stating that there wasn’t “a single person on the planet that could have sung this song with [her] but [him]”. Gaga then proceeded to encourage viewers to fight for their dreams and keep going no matter “how many times you get rejected or you fall down or get beaten up”.

*But for many, the best speech of the night came courtesy of Olivia Colman when she won Best Actress for her role in The Favourite. During her speech, she fangirled over fellow nominees Glenn Close and Lady Gaga, joked about the possibility that her kids weren’t watching by saying that “this is not going to happen again”, and reminisced about her time spent as a cleaner where she often pretended to give this exact speech. She also promised to snog anyone that she forgot to thank during the speech.

And that concludes this recap of the 91^st annual Academy Awards. Thanks for following along and be sure to sound off in the comments below with your own thoughts on the show. Did you think that it worked better without a host? And do you agree with me about what I said about how we really shouldn’t take award shows like this too seriously?    

Gravity (2013) review

James Cameron recently called this film ‘the best space film ever done’, which is quite a statement coming from the director of a film like ‘Aliens’, and a lot of critics are sharing the same sentiment. This film’s current rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 97%, which is one of the best RT scores that any film this year has gotten. While I never really find myself agreeing with the RT scores, there’s no arguing against these ratings. ‘Gravity’ is an experience that must be seen on the big screen, preferably in 3-D. Sure, it’s not the best written film out there, but from a technical standpoint, this film is pretty much perfect, with some of the best visuals in recent years. Aside from that, the film is very suspenseful and will have you on the edge of your seat throughout the course of the film.

Medical Engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is on her first space shuttle mission, accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), who is on his final mission with NASA. All seems to go well until one day, while Stone and Kowalski are working on repairs to the shuttle, debris from a Russian anti-satellite weapon, which has also hit other satellites, damages their ship, killing the rest of the crew and leaving Stone and Kowalski stranded in space. As their air supply continues to be depleted, the two attempt to reach the International Space Station so that they can hopefully get back home. They don’t have much time, though, as the satellite debris is now in orbit around Earth, meaning that it is sure to come back very soon.

‘Gravity’ is a technical masterpiece in almost every aspect of filmmaking. Cuaron always has a habit of having striking visuals in his films, and this film is no exception. With both the incredible visuals and some beautiful cinematography, this is one of the best-looking films of the year. Sure, the majority of the film obviously must have been shot in front of a green screen, but it’s pretty convincing nevertheless. This is also a must-see in 3-D. In fact, I’d say this is probably the best utilization of the 3-D format to date in a theatrical release. There’s just something about it that works so well; it helps to tell the story instead of being something that distracts the audience. That story also happens to make the movie a very suspenseful thriller. I guarantee that you will be on the edge of your seat throughout the whole movie. The movie may be only 90 minutes, but trust me, it doesn’t feel like it (and that’s a good thing).

It’s quite an achievement that this film works as well as it does considering that, if one were to really look at the script of this film, the story is actually quite simple. Not only that, but the characters are more like archetypes of characters we have seen before, like the untested rookie or the laid-back veteran. But this is not a film that needs great writing to be good. It’s more about the adventure. Even if the characters aren’t that well-developed, the acting from the two leads is still very strong. Bullock in particular really shines here, especially considering that, without giving much away, she’s usually the only one on screen. She does a great job of conveying the emotions her character is going through; fear, anxiety, etc. In regards to Clooney, he’s also great as well, as his character is the one that helps Bullock’s character calm down, despite the odds, because he’s the laid-back veteran who is one hell of an optimist.

Sure, from a writing standpoint, ‘Gravity’ is not exactly a masterpiece but I don’t think that was what Alfonso Cuaron was going for when he was making this film. He was more focused on making the film a great-looking and suspenseful thrill ride and in that regard, he certainly succeeded. Aside from the writing, ‘Gravity’ is pretty much a masterpiece in every sense of the word. The visuals are outstanding, it’s an emotionally gripping thrill ride from beginning to end, and it’s one of the few films that utilize the 3-D format to great effect. I hear that this film is a must-see in IMAX 3-D, but unfortunately I did not see it in IMAX 3-D but after seeing this film, I’m certainly considering seeing it in that format. It’s that good.

Rating: 5/5!