There are only five weeks left before Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity hits theatres and the early word from critics at the Venice Film Festival is that it's a sure-fire hit. Test screenings that took place last year were also positive, but know that the film is complete the good word has turned into universal praise from all that have seen it.
The critics are in agreement that Gravity is a technical marvel thanks to some stunning camerawork from cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Tree of Life) that could warrant a trip to an IMAX theatre near you. It's not just the cinematography and effects that are drawing good word though, Sandra Bullock's performance as Ryan Stone is right up there as a career best.
Varietys Justin Chang said:
"Suspending viewers alongside Bullock for a taut, transporting 91 minutes (with George Clooney in a sly supporting turn), the director’s long-overdue follow-up to Children of Men is at once a nervy experiment in blockbuster minimalism and a film of robust movie-movie thrills, restoring a sense of wonder, terror and possibility to the bigscreen that should inspire awe among critics and audiences worldwide."
HitFix's Guy Lodge:
"Certainly, the unfeasibly mobile camera of Cuarón’s loyal, invaluable cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki seems drugged – or perhaps purely entranced – by its possibilities, gliding and weaving across seemingly impracticable distances with a deliberate fluidity that no previous screen depiction of weightlessness (whether in outer space or the subconscious hotel suites of Christopher Nolan’s mind) has come close to approximating. "
My favorite reaction to the film comes from Empire's Nick de Semlyen:
"Now that the embargo is up, I can say what Jaws did for water, Gravity does for air."
If that doesn't sell you on the picture, I don't know what will.
Gravity hits theatres in IMAX 3D on October 4th.