{"id":27826,"date":"2024-01-18T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=27826"},"modified":"2024-01-18T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T06:00:00","slug":"i-s-s-begins-convincingly-but-veers-into-pulpiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=27826","title":{"rendered":"I.S.S. Begins Convincingly, But Veers Into Pulpiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running Time: 95 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This film from Bleecker Street Media will be playing\nexclusively at theaters on January 19th<\/sup>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its launch more than 25 years ago, the ISS\n(International Space Station) has been visited by astronauts from around the\nworld and used for various scientific studies and other educational purposes.\nThere have been numerous books on this and other orbiting stations chronicling\nthe incredible challenges and difficulties faced by crewmembers\u2026 so many tales\nthat it is surprising a narrative film hasn\u2019t been made on the subject. I.S.S.<\/em>\nis indeed a film about such a space station, but a fictional account that\nultimately falls into genre film territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The story begins with American researcher Dr. Kira Foster\n(Ariana DeBose) arriving at the title locale. She\u2019s introduced to US commander\nGordon Barrett (Chris Messina) and American Christian Campbell (John Gallagher\nJr.), as well as Russian leader Nicholai Pulov (Costa Ronin) and his crew,\nWeronica Vetrov (Masha Mashkova) and scientist Alexey Pulov (Pilou Asb\u00e6k).\nAfter a brief introduction, the political situation on Earth completely\ndevolves. War breaks out and secret messages are sent to Barrett and Pulov by\ntheir governments. Both are told to take control of the International Space\nStation by any means necessary and await further instructions. It isn\u2019t long\nbefore the characters begin turning on one another and violence erupts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The concept is interesting and, despite this being a\nrelatively modest production, there are impressive visuals. This includes the\ncrew floating inside the craft and, as expected, epic vistas of what appears to\nbe a fiery catastrophe occurring on Earth. And on a lighter note, there are\nalso a few interesting observations early on as characters talk to Foster and\nadvise her of the difficulties living on a ship without any gravity. Some of\nthe problems include sleeping issues, as well as trouble that can arise when\ndrinking beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This main conflict has a lot of potential, but the script\nfalters in that the horrifying war is actually introduced too early in the\nrunning time. As a result, it feels as though we haven\u2019t spent enough time with\nFoster or the other crewmember to be as empathetic with them as we should be.\nAdditionally, several immediately act out in blunt ways. While this behavior\nmight be a possibility in such a scenario and one could argue that this is the\npoint of the story, it still feels jarring and unconvincing when audiences\ndon\u2019t know a lot of specifics about the leads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It should be assumed that these are highly intelligent,\nskilled individuals. So, if they were to turn on each other, it would be tense\nto see them use their cunning to try and get the upper hand. Unfortunately, it\nisn\u2019t long before any sneakiness and subtlety is lost. But by the time one of\nthe individuals goes careening through the cabins seeking revenge for a partner\nusing a power tool, the movie has veered firmly into pulp territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cast are all engaging and, even if they are rushed into\nacting irrationally, do their best to add some gravitas to the material. There\ncertainly is tension during some of the sequences, including an early bit that\nfeatures one character suiting up and attempting to move across the exterior of\nthe station alone in order to make a necessary repair. This is as another\nindividual attempts to use an arm of the craft remotely to knock them into the\nnothingness of space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The technical skills are impressive and I.S.S. <\/em>has some moments that are entertaining, at least, in the exaggerated manner of a genre picture. The message of how people can be successfully pitted against each other by outside entities is also a fine one, but the screenplay handles it in too brusque a manner. One laments how much more powerful the film might have been if we got to know the characters better and they were less inclined to attack right from the get go. In the end, the movie provides an efficiently grim voyage, but not a mind-expanding one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 95 minutes This film from Bleecker Street Media will be playing exclusively at theaters on January 19th. Since its launch more than 25 years ago, the ISS (International Space Station) has been visited by astronauts from around the world and used for various scientific studies and other educational purposes. There have been numerous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[215,1785,2976,4312,4810,6251,6653,9319,9585,9586,9587,9588,9873,9994,10856,13379,16106,17776,18767,22825],"class_list":["post-27826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-215","tag-ariana-debose","tag-bleecker-street-media","tag-chris-messina","tag-costa-ronin","tag-drama","tag-earth","tag-horror","tag-i-s-s","tag-i-s-s-film-review","tag-i-s-s-movie-review","tag-i-s-s-review","tag-international-space-station","tag-iss","tag-john-gallagher-jr-2","tag-masha-mashkova","tag-pilou-asbaek-2","tag-science-fiction-2","tag-space","tag-thriller"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}