Gravity is heavy stuff. “Gravity” the (misnamed) film purports to be heavy. As in "This is deep shit, profound; dude, you’re in for some heavy spiritual moments, an epiphany." At the same time it is trying to be a Fast and Furious in the sky, the race circuit just above the atmosphere; a thriller with no villain and no characters. Houston, we have a problem.

Ok, so the script tries to create a character in female astronaut Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). Her character is based on two things: first, six months ago she was a hospital doctor (“I should be doing vaginal swabs and treating bee stings but here I am hanging in space trying to fix the Space Shuttle’s software and my sonic screwdriver keeps floating off.”); second, she had a four year old daughter who died. That’s it. The other character is Space Shuttle Commander, Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), a grizzled astronaut prone to sharing deeply implausible hokey stories (“I was in this New Orleans brothel one time...) with Houston or “profound” moments like “Ooh, look at the sunrise over the Earth.” Director, Alfonso Cuaron, tries to create drama when Kowalski sacrifices himself for Ryan but by this time the audience are hoping he will float off into space, which, mercifully, he does.

It must be hard to act when the script eschews characters but Bullock and Clooney succeed in portraying a vacuum within a vacuum. The ticket price is hard to justify when you are getting money for nothing, literally. Indeed, the strongest performance is by the Universe or the rim of the Earth, ably supported by a floating table tennis bat which wipes Bullock and Clooney off the screen.

So, what happens? Well, our two vacuums are in space when some nasty Russian missile creates some nasty Russian space debris (the villain?) but before Ryan and Kowalski can become vacuum cleaners the debris starts orbiting the earth at zillions of nasty miles per hour. The Space Shuttle is destroyed and the Russian space station (just across the cosmic parking lot) and the Chinese space station (double-parked 100 miles away)are damaged. Our vacuums are left in a, err, vacuum. Dr Ryan gets from one to the other whilst dodging shards of nasty Russian debris with great fortitude and skill. Did you know that manoeuvring a Russian or Chinese space station is as easy as driving a Citroen Saxo? A few buttons and bleeps and you’re where you want to be. There was one tricky moment, though, when Dr Ryan used what looked like a deodorant to propel herself through miles of space to reach an escape capsule. You can be sure of Sure.

At this point it’s customary to insert a spoiler alert but it’s hard to spoil this and alerts are only needed if the film is film is more entertaining than the review- it is no act of arrogance to say that this review is cheaper, shorter and more entertaining than Alfonso Cuaron’s ninety minutes. Naturally, Ryan presses a few buttons then hurtles, bounces and scorches through the atmosphere to a conveniently situated mountainside lake where she nearly drowns as the re-entry module sinks. Her lithe legs propel her to the surface and as she floats the audience surely wishes that a crocodile would snap her up.

Sadly, that’s not the whole story. Cuaron adds insult to injury by making directorial blunders at every floating space helmet’s twist and turn. Is this really the same director as Pan’s Labyrinth and Y Tu Mama Tambien? The score starts impressively...then turns to cheese. Audio sound tricks worked well once or twice but there comes a point where the contrast between whooshing, bashing, crashing space debris and an airlock’s roaring silence becomes...vacuous. The cinematography is stunning....for ten minutes until you long to be released from the Earth’s luminous curve. The special effects...well, they are pretty special. But 3D effects and 2D characters are problematic.

Cuaron never misses an opportunity for a cliché, stereotype or maudlin moment. The helpless but gutsy female lead is rescued by the square-jawed decisive, easy going, in-control , male lead; the Russian space station announces itself with floating chess pieces, the Chinese space station with the show-stealing, floating ping pong bat. I was waiting for chop sticks and a chop suey. Dr Ryan faces death, contemplating her cosmic loneliness and crystalline tears float, delicately across the cockpit. At this point, I was in tears...of a sort. Then I realized what Gravity should have been called: Floater. A turd that just won’t go away.