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‘I.S.S.’ Review: Ariana DeBose Joins American-Russian International Space Station Crew Just As Disaster Strikes Earth In This Slow-Burning Thriller
Watching the science ficture outer space thriller, I.S.S. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that maybe this claustrophobic and talky material might be better suited as a stage play than as …
Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s competent direction of Nick Shafir’s Black List script never manages to set the screen on fire as it is more focused on the increasingly tense relations between two trios, one American Astronauts, one Russian Cosmonauts, aboard the International Space Shuttle just as war between the two countries breaks out down below on Earth causing great complication and conflict for these six. Spending too long to get this 95 minute space opera rolling, we meet the various players including Dr. Kira Foster ( Ariana DeBose) who is the newest arrival, joining with Commander Gordon ( Chris Messina) and the slippery Christian Campbell (John Gallagher Jr.) on the U.S. side, and attractive female Cosmonaut Weronika Vetrov (Masha Mashkova), Science Officer Alexey Pulov (Pilou Asbaek), and Commander Pulov ( Costa Ronin) on the Russian side, but our first impressions of them reveal this is all a very collegial group, that is until finally things go bump in the night in the form of emails from Earth that a war between the two countries has broken out . Coqpwerthwaite is an award winning documentarian (the harrowing Blackfish) as well as talented on the narrative side as well with two good, modest outings in recent years, the moving true story, Our Friend, and another film torn from real life, Megan Leavey with Kate Mara.
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