Recently, my sister made the generalization that I do not like most movies.  I countered by reasserting my desire to always give my honest opinion.  I confess that I embellish what I write for The Legionnaire with whatever witticisms (or plain sarcasm) that I manage to squeeze out of my brain.  These reach another level when I find something truly awful.  To further her point, my sister began trying to think of films she did not think are quality, and the one she landed on was Gravity (2013).  I do not remember why I did not see this movie, though I have a vague recollection of either finding the trailer dumb, or people’s initial reaction to the release.  Either way, she made the request for me to see this one, so here you go.

The crew of the Space Shuttle Explorer are currently experiencing the effects of zero Gravity.  That is because they are currently in orbit around the Earth, attempting to fix the Hubble Space Telescope.  Actually, this is the main task of Mission Specialist Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock).  The rest are carrying on with their duties.  The only other one you need to worry about, and you will see why in a moment, is Lieutenant Matthew “Matt” Kowalski (George Clooney).  He is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) veteran, this being his last mission, and he is on a space walk with Dr. Stone as she carries out her repairs.  Towards the end of this job, they get an emergency transmission from Mission Control (voiced by Ed Harris) in Houston informing them of Russians shooting down one of their own satellites with missiles.  Doing so has touched off a chain reaction amongst other objects circling the planet from space, destroying an escalating number of satellites.  This creates a debris field of various sized pieces of what is now junk hurtling through the void at the speed of a bullet.  Mission Control gives the order to abort the mission, but it is too late.  The fast-moving pieces of metal slam into the space shuttle and everything else around them.  In the chaos, Dr. Stone is thrown free of the wreckage, but once she untethers herself to the metal arm on which she had been working, she is now floating alone in space.  Further, she loses communication with Mission Control due to the loss of the satellites, and her oxygen levels are beginning to dip to dangerously low levels.  For the moment, she is saved when Lieutenant Kowalski gets to her.  He is able to do so because he is attached to a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).  Basically, this is a space jet pack.  Attaching a cable to her, they are able to make their way to the International Space Station (ISS).  Unfortunately, they cannot control their approach because of the MMU losing the last of its propellent.  As a result, they tumble along the exterior of the station before Dr. Stone’s leg is entangled in the deployed parachute of an escape pod.  Unfortunately, the force of Lieutenant Kowalski’s body is moving them away from the ISS.  To save her life, he unlatches himself to drift away.  He remains in radio contact for as long as possible, giving the first-time astronaut the instructions she needs to board the station and a further course of action.  Her stay there is not a long one.  Before she can really assess the situation, a fire caused by the hasty retreat of the crew begins raging out of control, causing her to get into the remaining escape vehicle despite the unslung parachute.  She is able to get away from the exploding station, though the parachute is preventing her from getting any real distance.  This means she must go extra-vehicular (EV) to detach from the parachute, doing so just before the debris field returns.  Her next goal is to make to a Chinese space station 100 kilometers away, but she finds that she does not have the fuel to make it.  She tries the radio once more, but only gets some stranger talking to his baby.  The interactions remind her of the daughter she once had, who had died in a tragic accident at school.  Feeling that hope is gone, and wanting to be reunited with her child in death, she turns off the oxygen in order to fall asleep and die.  Before her life ends, she has a hallucination where Lieutenant Kowalski makes it to her pod and gets inside.  He finds some vodka under her seat and reminds Dr. Stone that she needs to keep going, and that she has not tried everything.  Looking away and back again, he is gone, but she decides to keep trying to get back to the surface of the Earth.  She figures out that she can detach her section from the rest of the vehicle and fool it into thinking it is about to land, giving her the boost she needs to make it to the Chinese installation.  Like the ISS, she finds it abandoned and she does not have long before it is about to be destroyed.  Thus, she makes immediately for the escape vehicle, but remains attached to the station as it falls out of orbit and into Earth’s atmosphere.  She finally launches, and the pod floats down to the Earth with a parachute.  It touches down in the water, and she is able to swim to the surface.  She has a laugh as she makes it to an unknown shore, thankful to be alive.

Since I am a fan of The Martian (2015), I found that I enjoyed Gravity, at least more than my sister did.  I am taken in by stories of survival, and on a few occasions I was nearly moved to tears in thinking about the desperateness of her situation.  One of the main features of its direness is the fact that she is eventually left alone.  She cannot communicate with Mission Control, and Lieutenant Kowalski presumably dies.  Whatever it is that happens to him, before he goes he points out something that can be applied to our prayer lives.  After the disaster that leaves them stranded, he continues to talk to Mission Control as if they still had a live line to one another.  Dr. Stone sees Lieutenant Kowalski’s actions as fruitless.  He tells her that it is important that they keep on communicating even if they cannot hear him.  This way, in the event that the radio problem is fixed, Houston will be apprised of their situation and know how to direct them.  As I heard this, I thought of how society sometimes thinks about God.  There are plenty of those out there that claim that either He does not exist, or that if He does, He is not listening.  I am not sure which of these incorrect scenarios is worse.  One alternative to this is a line from William Forrester (Sean Connery) in Finding Forrester.  He tells young Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) that there is no risk in praying.  Indeed, from a non-Christian perspective, there are many therapists and other researchers coming around to the notion that praying is beneficial for us.  Of course, these benefits are incalculable, whether you are Dr. Stone in Gravity, who is in need of a miracle but does not know how to pray, or a regular person walking down the street.  It is always remarkable how people in her situation (perhaps not specifically) turn to God.  When all seems lost, what is the risk?  I promise you He is listening.

I am no expert on such matters, but there were a few moments in Gravity that bumped against my rudimentary understanding of how space works.  They were not enough to quell my enjoyment of it, overall.  It is an exciting film from beginning to end, and it gets my recommendation.