Finally saw this. Loved it. IMO best movie this year.
I sea the cynics and haters in this thread and that's fine, it's a unique movie.
The technical aspect is amazing, as has been mentioned, but beyond that, I really loved how simplistic yet powerful the movie was. The whole movie was similar to the acclaimed intro to Wall-E. The score was great and the movie was paced well.
The common complaint is "lack of story" yet just because there were only 2 actors in the entire movie doesn't mean it lacked story. Sure, it doesn't have the branching story arcs like some fanatasy epic, but there was story nonetheless. To me the story wasn't even about the actual characters or the possible nightmares of space. The greater story was simply about life and our planet. Gravity and how it's taken for granted. After watching the first 85 minutes of the film, when those final scenes were displayed and we finally saw "Gravity", I actually felt the weight of it. It was unique in that to finally experience gravity - which we just accept everyday - I had to first experience weightlessness for 85 minutes.
Beyond that, it did hash out the generic story of life & death. Being afraid of death, accepting death, evaluating life, and the human desire to live. These have been told countless times in countless ways. But all movies rehash the same concepts and I can't fault this movie just because it tells the same story we've seen before.
The other smaller bits are the hypotheticals. The what-ifs of space and the affects on earth. A satellite apocalypse is most likely a real fear for space agencies, yet the consequences would affect so many more people.
The only gripe I had with the film were a few bad(annoying) acting bits by Bullock. The "I don't know what to do!" reminded me of her debut in the movie Speed.
