I was moved to tears multiple times during Gravity. Not just by the personal story of Bullock's loss (which strikes close to home), but also by the stark beauty (and terror) of the film. The silent awe of space, the surge of life you feel when she swims into the ocean, and out onto the shore. The emotional punch of feeling as if you are standing on Earth for the very first time, viewing everything with new eyes. It's as close as one might come to feeling like a newborn. Awed and terrified at the same time.Voronwë the Faithful wrote:Which is why he has Gravity as No. 1. Very little emotional heft, but very intense visuals and edge-of-your-seat tension.
It reminds me of CS Lewis' comments on "lifting the veil of the familiar." Fantasy, by stripping events of real-world baggage, can make one see a mundane thing anew. Green suns, and all that. Cuaron, taking us into space for the bulk of the film, only to plunge us back at the end, made us see life, and Earth, with fresh eyes. The Earth, though not a fantastical place, actually felt fantastical to me. And it was beautiful and reaffirming.
I'm sorry it didn't have that effect on you, but stating that it had no emotional heft as if it was a statement of fact is a little unfair!
Perhaps a more appropriate word than caricatures would be "archetypes." And I would agree - Children of Men is also full of archetypal characters, including a modern day wizard (Michael Cain)! But I disagree that that's a bad thing. They are simple characters, simply drawn, and that works wonderfully in this simple story. It's refreshing to see a blockbuster film without so much clutter.But I really didn't feel like the characters in that movie were real characters; more like caricatures.
ETA: This is an edited version of my original post.