In Gravity and All Is Lost, the main characters struggle alone against all odds to stay alive, one in outer space, one in the middle of the ocean. Everything that can go wrong does, and eventually they reach a point where they are face to face with their own mortality. I watched these in the same day, as a “mortality double feature”, and since they were both a bit underwhelming, neither one really meriting its own review, I’ve decided to review them together.

Gravity is one of those films where they put all their effort into how things look, and no effort into anything else. Things look amazing, I can’t deny it. The astronauts float around in low Earth orbit, with consistent and dramatically beautiful backgrounds of various sections of Earth, which lull and mesmerize you with their beauty – one scene played over the night-time coastal lights of Sicily and mainland Italy was particularly memorable, lovely to behold. I wasn’t so keen on the visuals of the debris field that wreaks all the havoc on their ship – it was your typical CGI nightmare – but oh, those shots of Earth looked fab! If this film was IMAX: Low Earth Orbit, I would have been more than satisfied. But it wasn’t. Gravity had a story to tell, and therein lies the problem.

To the makers of Gravity, it’s not enough to have an instance of catastrophic misfortune and then just let the rest of the story naturally evolve from there.  No, our heroine must face and surmount every single conceivable obstacle that could be dreamed up by the scriptwriters. This naturally makes the story seem increasingly unrealistic, and eventually, just plain silly. By about half way through the filmmakers have tipped their hand so thoroughly that it becomes perfectly obvious to the viewer how the film is going to end, after which the illusion of suspense dissipates, leaving only a sequence of more and more contrived and outlandish action skits. 

As for the dialog/monologues, they were really disappointing. Neither Clooney or Bullock has anything interesting to say the entire movie. George Clooney is totally wasted in this film, his lines so poorly conceived that even delivered in his great voice they do essentially nothing for the emotional tenor of the film. Sandra Bullock (who definitely does not have a great voice) does a lot of yelling, whining and fast breathing, and the content of her lines is even worse than Clooney’s. Bullock’s big “mortal moment” felt canned and mechanical, and the lost-daughter sub-theme was a complete non-starter. 

All Is Lost is a bit more realistic than Gravity in how its story plays out, but its set-up is perplexing. You learn nothing about who this guy is or what he is doing all alone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at his advanced age (Redford’s character looks every bit of 77 moving around that boat.) His sequence of misfortune is unlikely, but fairly believable – what’s less believable is how weirdly unprepared he is. His toy boat seems more appropriate for Chesapeake Bay than hanging out in the middle of the Pacific during storm season. He doesn’t appear to know how to navigate very well. He has no back-up radio, no back-up batteries, nothing is waterproofed properly, his food reserves and water reserves are inadequate, and he has no proper device for extracting fresh water from salt water. His emergency kit is a complete joke, and he opens it up like he’s never even bothered to think about what’s in it! (What he finds are five, 2oz water packs and three flairs – again: “Chesapeake Bay”). He doesn’t even have a decent flash light! And don’t even get me started on his pathetic little fishing kit, which resembles something a demented five year old would rig to catch goldfish out of a goldfish bowl. Even his damn life raft was a piece of shit, frankly.

In the end, what makes this film work (to the extent that it does) is Robert Redford himself. Years ago my wife once asked me “Is there any actor so good at his craft that you would rather watch them in a movie instead of Robert Redford?” And my answer, then and now, is a clear and resounding No! Redford is simply magical to watch – he always was. I can’t imagine anyone else pulling off this bizarre movie in which at most maybe 20 words are spoken. He carries so much emotional weight on screen that his mere presence glues your attention and carries your involvement through to the last frame. Unlike Gravity, where you’re sick of Sandra Bullock within 10 minutes, I walked out of All Is Lost thinking not so much about the film and its story, but about just how great Robert Redford still is in movies.

I don’t know what else to say about these mediocre attempts at the desperate, solo survival thing. Both of these films are diverting enough, if your hankering for mildly disconcerting entertainment where people are pushed to their limits. But you’d never, ever want to watch either of them again, and both are disappointingly limited experiences.