I'm not a fan of movies set in space or Sandra Bullock, but neither of those were the reason that I disliked Gravity. Gravity managed to hold my interest for the first twenty minutes, during the initial story and character set-up that leads into the disaster that sets the movie in motion. It's all downhill from there.
The movie is a survival story of a medical doctor on her first space mission (Bullock) and a vetern astronaut (George Clooney) who are in a fight for their lives when their shuttle is destroyed by a debris field.
Early on in the film, the action sequences are well done and quiet horrifying. It's very intense. However, this fades quickly as the story plausibility becomes a bigger factor. The film is only ninety-one minutes and two-thirds of it is ridiculous. In particular, Bullocks character becomes nearly super-human as she manages to not only avoid death, but also injury as she escapes flying debris, balls of fire, low oxygen levels, freezing temperatures...
There is next to no character development in this film. The only thing that we really know about Bullock's character is that she is devastated over the death of her child. This does give a nice parallel with her time in space, as she feels emotionally alone and isolated from her loss, but in space she really is physically those things. The one take-away message from the movie is that life is short and that you better start living it.
Clooney's character has even less character development. He is about to retire and on his final mission. His character provides one of the bad movie cliches of "the character who is able to sense danger". That is about the extent of his character. Bullock's character provides the other bad movie cliche of having "always crash landing during simulator practice and now having to land the real-deal to save her life". Commence eye-rolling now.
The big issue with the lack-of-character development is I really didn't care about either character. This is a movie where the audience desperately needs to connect with the characters. They were too one-diminsional to love, hate or feel any emotional investment towards their well being. They were utterly flat, even as Bullock was dying and hysterical.
The film even attempts to be "artsy" with shots of Bullock floating around as if she is utero. Admittedly, the is aestetically stunning and I'm sure that the film's visual effects will be rewarded during awards season. However, no amount of special effects can save this fiasco of a story.