Movie review: Space jeopardy thriller “Gravity” has some accuracy downsides but its overall pull is obvious

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doLizp4PJmc[/youtube]
The new blockbuster space jeopardy thriller Gravity (2013) has just been released and is now filling cinemas and movie theatres around the world. The film stars Sandra Bullock as Dr Ryan Stone on her first Space Shuttle mission, along with George Clooney as a manned manoeuvring unit expert and veteran astronaut Matt Kawalski. Their Hubble repair mission goes wrong after space debris alarm and a fierce struggle for survival ensues. To go any further will be to spoil the film’s plot (as expertly directed by Alfonso Cuarón).
This space disaster movie is a reminder of space (and even some aviation) jeopardy films past. Space cadets may remember Marooned (1969) starring Gene Hackman (directed by John Sturgess) whose three man crew find themselves stranded in an inoperable spacecraft, or more recently, Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995), the film based on NASA’s real life near disaster of 1970 (one of its stars, Ed Harris, also plays the unseen capcom mission control voice in Gravity). Clint Eastwood’s Space Cowboys (2000) or Danny Boyle’s underrated Sunshine (2007) also come to mind which, like Marooned, is a reminder that space heroes sometimes have to do the decent thing.
However, there are also (in ...