It’s only been a little over a decade since Alfonso Cuarón’s space disaster survival adventure Gravity made one huge, Oscar-winning splash with a story set almost entirely in a zero-gravity environment, leaving Sandra Bullock and George Clooney floating around like balloons for most of the action. At the time, the images seemed shocking and striking, enough to cause an extensive outcry “How did they do that?” technical pieces that focus solely on gravity effects.
It’s a sign of how far special effects have come in the last decade that similar effects can now be used in a film as small and mundane as ISS, another space thriller that centers on the International Space Station and tackles some similar survival issues, along with some new ones. The film is overtly designed as the following Gravityor at least the next iteration of Netflix’s sci-fi downer Stowaway. Anchored by recent Oscar winner Ariana DeBose (Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, and star of Disney’s Wish) and full of lurking danger and deadly battles, ISS seems at every turn to be a film designed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, guessing the characters’ motives and wondering, once the conflict begins, who will die next.
And yet the film is a tepid failure on almost every level. DeBose stars as Dr. Kira Foster, a biologist who joins the crew of the International Space Station to work on artificial organ growth experiments, ultimately explained in a short, flat monologue for personal reasons. When she arrives, she finds herself sharing the station with three Russian cosmonauts and two other Americans, all collegial, fun-loving types who have long ago discovered how to smooth the rough edges of their relationships with easy jokes and strong boundaries. They share a closed, limited environment where privacy is largely a fictional concept, and it is important to get along. The most important rule they live by: don’t talk about politics. What happens on the planet stays on the planet.
That rule is pushed to the limit when vibrant orange mushroom clouds appear on the large blue marble that serves as a constant backdrop. Both the Russians and the Americans are receiving secret messages from their respective leaders that essentially say, “We are at war. The ISS is strategically important, so secure it for our side by any means necessary.” This first raises the question of whether these scientists and colleagues are capable of killing each other, and then the question of whether they can trust each other enough to make peace once the death toll rises above zero.
That premise should be a recipe for tremendous tension and a great cat-and-mouse game, a “Who do you trust?” play of dueling motifs in an arena claustrophobic and potentially deadly enough to up the ante considerably. But screenwriter Nick Shafir and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Blackfish, De Grijp) never detect a spark or break in the material. The pace is icy and laborious, despite the tight running time of 95 minutes. Scenes that should be breathless stretch out until they’re baggy. Scenes that need room to breathe wander around without a sense of focus or purpose.
Image: Bleeckerstraat
None of the characters particularly stand out until the finale, bar For all humanity‘s Masha Mashkova as a cosmonaut who seemingly tries to make up for the rest of the cast’s sleepiness by injecting as much energy into her role as possible. As captain of the ISS, Chris Messina is more distinguishable by his mustache than by anything his character says or does. Game of Thrones‘ The ever-reliable Pilou Asbæk, as the most soulful of the cosmonauts, brings a kind of weary gravity to his role. But his character is often reduced to gloom lurking or pronouncing other characters’ names meaningfully. He has criminally little to work with.
And the heavy-handed symbolism that runs through virtually every scene makes the entire film an exercise in waiting to see how long it will be before something else allegorical happens. When Dr. When Kira unloads her cargo of live mice for her space experiments, they turn on each other in the tension of their new environment and mutilate each other, illustrating how their human counterparts are likely to behave when things get tense. Looking at Earth through the glass dome of the ISS sparks a meaningful, preordained ironic conversation about how national borders are not visible from orbit, suggesting that space dwellers should not concern themselves with nationalism. hint hint.
Even an accidental needle drop of scorpions’ Song reminiscent of the Cold War: ‘Winds of Change’ leads to a brief confrontation about national tensions and personal history. Every moment is a learning moment ISSwhether it is intended to educate the characters, the audience, or both.
Image: Bleeckerstraat
But the film has all the energy of a dry classroom lecture. The performances are almost monotonously dialed back, the score does nothing to ramp up the tension, and even the inevitable chase seems slow and derivative. No one here is selling the idea that life or death is at stake. Even Stowawaythe Anna Kendrick-led 2021 sci-fi thriller, which similarly asks questions about how to choose sacrificial victims in a hushed, respectful whisper, had more energy than this.
All of this means that, for the most part, viewers have very little to watch ISS‘s running time, except for that image of the characters floating in freefall, spinning each other around in the air for fun, or trying to navigate crowded doorways by casually yanking each other through. The zero-grav effects in ISS are simple, convincing and effective, neither having a major impact nor standing out in distracting ways. They’re serviceable, as is everything else about this watered-down attempt at a thriller. It’s strange to think how these types of special effects become so routine and unremarkable so quickly. The film’s attempts at conflict and intrigue feel equally unremarkable.
ISS will be in cinemas from January 19. Check out the film’s website for local listings.