‘I.S.S.’ Review: Ariana DeBose Outer-Space Thriller Is Respectable But Lifeless

thewrap.com:

While the Cold War has long been over a second one brews between the USA and Russia inside “I.S.S.,” Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s frustratingly broad yet stylish space thriller that just premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.Considering the growing political tensions between the two countries today, this is a movie one might be tempted to adorn with adjectives such as “timely” and “urgent.” Except “I.S.S.”—a title inexplicably fashioned with three periods—is too generic a genre exercise to matter, one that vaguely orbits notions such as trust, selflessness, teamwork and the hazards of blind nationalism with the most simplistic messages to transmit about them.Working from a Blacklist script by debuting screenwriter Nick Shafir, Cowperthwaite’s pressure-cooker outing is set sometime in the near future, introducing us via an efficient title card to the brief history of the International Space Station (ISS), founded decades ago as a symbol of the collaboration between the US and Russian governments.

Today, the ISS is primarily a research facility covering advancements in medicine, technology and space exploration, occupied continually with a team of US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.

The film circles one such team of six scientists (three from each country) with an unexplained medical mission of curing some disease.

The band find themselves at odds, though, when an earthbound war breaks out between their respective motherlands. On the American side there is the capable space newbie Dr.