Early reviews for Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi thriller Gravity have been nothing short of glowing. According to critics, moviegoers are in for a real treat this fall.
The highly-anticipated outer space adventure was recently screened at the Venice Film Festival to thunderous applause. The film’s intensity was felt by plenty of folks in attendance, including but not limited to a handful of professional critics.
Gravity stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as a pair of astronauts who find themselves trapped in space after an accident leaves them stranded. Since communication with Earth has been completely disrupted, the duo will have to figure out some other way to escape their predicament.
The Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy was one of the many reviewers who sung the film’s praises after its screening at the film festival. According to McCarthy, Gravity is as close to hanging out in outer space as many of us will ever experience.
“At once the most realistic and beautifully choreographed film ever set in space, Gravity is a thrillingly realized survival story spiked with interludes of breath-catching tension and startling surprise,” he explained in his review.
Although a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s iconic space flick 2001 almost ruined the cinematic party for Indiewire writer Oliver Lyttelton, the critic was incredibly impressed with the experience as a whole.
“‘Gravity’ is about as visceral an experience as you can have in a cinema, it’s a technical marvel, and it’s a blockbuster with heart and soul in spades. It’s about the best opening to a film festival that you could ask for,” Lyttelton wrote.
Variety scribe Justin Chang said Gravity is filled with “robust movie-movie thrills, restoring a sense of wonder, terror, and possibility to the big screen that should inspire awe among critics and audiences worldwide.”
Moviegoers will be able to experience the magic of Gravity when it hits theaters across North America on October 4.
[Image via Warner Bros. Pictures]
