Without going into too much detail, it's basically a parable about overcoming grief and finding the will to forge ahead in the face of tragedy. That was hammered home so forcefully that I felt like the tail end was bordering on being almost too sentimental. That's not that big of a complaint, though, because ultimately I really enjoyed the overall experience.

Visually, yeah, I can't imagine it won't meet many people's undoubtedly high expectations. The opening long-take is as good as advertised. I literally thought to myself while I was watching it that if Orson Welles came back from the grave today and watched the opening scene, his head would explode. FWIW, I think it's worth seeing in 3D.

Also, I had no idea Emmanuel Lubezki shot this shit!

Cuarón really showed a fantastic ability to build and sustain suspense and tension. The whole auditorium was white-knuckling it for about 85% of the movie. He also did a nice job in my estimation of making you feel what the astronauts are feeling - when Bullock at one point starts spinning uncontrollably, the camera keeps spinning with her. For a long time. It's gets pretty relentless, but it achieves its goal of getting you in her frame of mind.

90 minutes was a perfect run-time, too. Any more near-catastophic episodes would have been approaching overkill.

Bullock is great. Near lock for an Oscar nomination. It was refreshing to see a strong female protagonist carrying a movie for a change.