I.S.S is a sci-fi thriller that takes place aboard the International Space Station (I.S.S.) where U.S. and Russian scientists and astronauts work together to complete research for biology, technology and just overall astronomy.
This 95-minute claustrophobic story stars only six individuals. We are first introduced to Kira (Ariana DeBose) and Christian (John Gallagher Jr.), two Americans that are traveling to the I.S.S. to meet their other U.S. counterpart, Gordon (Chris Messina) as well as three additional Russian scientists. The individuals that played the Russian characters were Masha Machkova, Costa Ronin, and Pilou Asbaek.
The first thing that this film did well was the introduction of all the characters and the background in the beginning. One thing I was afraid of going into this was almost zero-character development and backstory and just diving right into the heart of the conflict. However, I genuinely cared for all the characters and I liked the way there were only six characters in the entire movie.
I.S.S also featured amazing shots of outer space, earth and the International Space Station. A lot of space films center around the character and a close up of their face almost the entire time, however this film did a great job at showing the far-out shots and truly defined how space looks and how scary it can be. I really enjoyed that it showed how small the I.S.S. actually is. They didn’t change it to fit their narrative but rather showed how confined it was and that there truly is no place to hide aboard the station.
One thing that seriously lacked was the story. It is completely possible for what happened in the movie to actually happen in real life. But would the real people at the I.S.S. act the way they did in the movie? I don’t think so.
I understand it was fiction and you need to make a compelling movie, but I just find it highly unreasonable for the characters to act the way they did, especially how they all interacted with each other before the message came through to take over the station. It doesn’t help when there is some really cringy dialogue that they gave some of the characters, specifically Christian. It almost seemed like he tried a little too hard in some scenes and the lines he was provided did not help.
Final Thoughts:
I was pleasantly surprised with I.S.S. I was not going into it with high hopes. I was the only one in my theater on a Friday afternoon, so I was ready to walk into a snoozefest. However, I found myself on the edge of my seat at times and my heart was pounding. I thoroughly enjoyed the epic scenes of space and Earth but then also the close quarters struggles the characters had to go through. I.S.S. > Gravity
