I.S.S. (2024)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, January 18

R Running Time: 95 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • It’s January and this is science fiction. Sit back, check your mind and ego and enjoy!

  • Maximizes every penny of its $20 million production budget with impressive visual effects and production design.

  • The premise is honestly a pretty clever concept.

NO

  • Where I found a way to look past some glaring script flaws and just go with things, I fully understand that I.S.S. may cause some headache-inducing eyerolls from more savvy sci-fi viewers.

  • Even as someone who found it more enjoyable than not, as a suspense/thriller, I.S.S. seldom thrills and offers minimal suspense.

  • I am not sure a lot of people are asking for Russia vs. America movies in 2024, but alas, your wait is over I guess?


OUR REVIEW

Chaos reigns below while people bicker above. In suspense/thriller I.S.S., nuclear war breaks out on Earth between Russia and the United States while six astronauts, three from America and three from Russia, are working on the International Space Station. 

In and of itself, that’s a cool idea for a film and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite toys with the concept in a quasi-3-on-3 death match sort of way. The United States versus Russia, more than 250 miles above our heads. Tickets are now available.

Cowperthwaite is an acclaimed documentarian, in addition to her work with narrative fiction. Hints of that exist here, as early on she invests time in showing us the I.S.S. location. A nice tutorial of sorts is given to the newest arrival to the Space Station, Dr. Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose). We see the crew navigate around one another in weightlessness, see their sleeping arrangements and the intricacies of surviving in this environment. 

Foster has brought baby mice to study. Astronaut Gordon (Chris Messina) is secretly in a relationship with cosmonaut Weronika (Maria Mashkova). Another cosmonaut, Alexey (Pilou Asbæk) seems to glare and look menacing all the time, while astronaut Christian (John Gallagher Jr.) just wants to get home to his family. And there’s Alexey’s brother Nicholai (Costa Ronin). Honestly, I barely remember much about him.

As tensions begin to surface, Foster notices bright lights out the I.S.S. window coming from the Earth’s surface and…whaddyaknow… World War III has broken out!

МОЙ БОГ!

At its heart, I.S.S. is one of those outlandish, lower-budget thrillers, with a script one best not think too hard about. Impressively, Cowperthwaite maximizes all $20 million of her production budget. The visual effects look terrific, including a scene where Gordon goes on a bit of a spacewalk to tend to a repair. The film retains a believable appearance, with cinematographer Nick Remy Matthews using a mix of angles and shifts in perspective to help us feel either claustrophobic and lost or adrift within the white walls and colorless corridors created by production designer Geoff Wallace.

Oscar-winner DeBose (West Side Story) at first seems miscast in the role. And while she is never fully believable as a scientist-slash-astronaut, most everyone in I.S.S. feel like something of a caricature. Somehow, that does not get in the way of enjoying the film. Since the premise of Nick Shafir’s script is a little bit silly anyway, DeBose and her fellow actors are all just convincing enough, and Cowperthwaite’s direction is just compelling enough, that we can easily escape into this thing for the 90 minutes or so it asks of us.

Of course, not everyone is going to survive this and we know that. At some point, something ridiculous is going to happen - and it does. Yet, I.S.S. never loses the viewer. There is something intriguing about seeing how these six people are going to adjust and react to a situation they can do nothing about. How they handle receiving orders from their home countries they are ill-equipped to execute. And how they plan to survive such an unfortunate ordeal.

I don’t know folks. The premise is clever. The ending is frustrating. Even still, I enjoyed this almost in spite of itself. Maybe I just needed something mindless to engage with, but I.S.S. kept my attention and made me forget about the world for a little while. 

Sometimes, that’s enough.     

CAST & CREW

Starring: Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, John Gallagher Jr., Masha Mashkova, Costa Ronin, Pilou Asbæk

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Written by: Nick Shafir
Release Date: January 19, 2024
Bleecker Street Media