imo, Sandra Bullock was miscast because in order to have a round, dynamic character in this story which involves full panic mode... you'd need to start with someone who has a personal reputation--with a character reputation to match--of being capable of remaining calm under pressure.
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As a story, I don't know if I would say it's great, but as a visual experience it's A+++
You WILL NOT get this from your iphone, downloaded torrent etc. It HAS TO BE SEEN ON IMAX to be fully immersed. The visual detail of the ships is just amazing. Framestore did an AMAZING job!!! They deserve the Oscar and just TAKE MY MONEY!

Yup. Cinema is a visual medium.

Most people basically and sadly want to watch what amounts to filmed stage productions it seems.

Kubrick tried eliminating narrative from his work as much as possible, but that actually takes effort and thinking. We know how that goes anymore..........

No one even mentioned the 15 minute continuous shot. What this did to my brain is help FOCUS and immerse me in the environment. I think I prefer to play games where there are NO cuts between different camera. I like the feeling that I am actually there, and man did Gravity deliver that feeling. I feel for the rendering team that had to manage all those frames. Luckily there was no character animation, just a lot of cloth and rigid body sims, but technically and visually it is so impressive and just goes to show what you can achieve when the director is notjust good at story telling but also understands the technology he is using and uses it to bring out the best visual experience to date. It puts Avatar to shame.

Well, I don't think it puts Avatar to shame at all.

The films have 2 utterly different goals.

I was just absolutely lost in the wonderment of Avatar, and could have cared less about the story. And all people could do was complain about the simple story. They didn't seem to care a thing about what they actually saw. Really exposed just how many jaded non-thinkers there are out there.

That film did not need a complex story weighing down everything else that was trying to be explained to set up that world.

The Avatar sequels will get more into the complexities of the situation. They will be different.

Avatar for me was a huge let down. I will tell you why. I could have watched avatar without a single BLUE person in the frame.
You could have made avatar into a Discover channel special, where we go on a space safari and I guarantee it would be far more interesting to learn about the species on the planet then watch mech warriors fight smurfs...

I hated what they did to Avatar because the world they created was so beautiful and done with such detail and care and we barely got to explore the visuals. It's a DAMN shame story is more important then the visuals...

Watch Baraka, it's visually breathtaking and I can watch that movie over and over.

No one even mentioned the 15 minute continuous shot. What this did to my brain is help FOCUS and immerse me in the environment. I think I prefer to play games where there are NO cuts between different camera. I like the feeling that I am actually there, and man did Gravity deliver that feeling. I feel for the rendering team that had to manage all those frames. Luckily there was no character animation, just a lot of cloth and rigid body sims, but technically and visually it is so impressive and just goes to show what you can achieve when the director is notjust good at story telling but also understands the technology he is using and uses it to bring out the best visual experience to date. It puts Avatar to shame.

The opening film with a better 15-20 minute start was probably Saving Private Ryan, but even that can be debated.

No one even mentioned the 15 minute continuous shot. [...]