In “I.S.S. (International Space Station),” a new sci fi/horror drama starring Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose and Chris Messina, and now playing in theatres, the conflict that drives the outer space story is very much earthbound.
In the spirit of international co-operation, astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station hail from the United States and Russia. The Americans, team leader Gordon Barrett (Chris Messina), biologist Dr. Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) and Christian Campbell (John Gallagher Jr.), work alongside Russians Alexey Pulov (Pilou Asbæk), Weronika Vetrov (Masha Mashkova), and Nicholai Pulov (Costa Ronin).
“We don’t talk politics. Here we are one.”
Despite having virtually no privacy in the cramped quarters, tensions are kept to a minimum, although Pulov ominously hints at the trouble to come when he notes that it won’t end well for the laboratory mice Foster brought on-board and keeps in a small paddock.
For now, however, all is well. They play chess, do sing-alongs and drink booze in zero gravity.
“You forget everything that happens down there,” Pulov says, “when you can see the beauty from up here.”
The peaceful ship’s tranquil atmosphere is shattered when a sudden burst of flame appears on Earth. Foster first thinks it is a natural phenomenon, like a volcanic eruption, but when a cluster of explosions occurs in rapid succession, it’s clear something devastating is happening below.
Stepping outside the ship to repair a broken antenna, Barrett witnesses a terrible sight. War has broken out between the U.S. and Russia, and the Earth is on fire.
NASA has instructed the Americans to “take the I.S.S. by any means necessary.” Trouble is, both countries see the I.S.S. as an asset, and both want control. “We have to assume the Russians have the same order,” says Campbell.
What began as an exercise in co-operation soon becomes a matter of survival as they lose communication with Earth, and must overcome their mistrust of one another to keep the I.S.S. from plummeting from the sky.
A study of human nature rather than a sci fi epic, “I.S.S.” is a fairly simple, yet effective, story of loyalty, sabotage and treachery. The I.S.S. setting is compelling, providing horror elements like claustrophobia and isolation, but this is essentially a locked room drama that is more about human nature than it is about zero gravity. The monsters here isn’t from outer space, it’s the mistrust and paranoia that forms in the face of adversity.
Set to an anxiety-inducing soundtrack by Anne Nikitin, the movie doesn’t rewrite the isolation horror playbook, but delivers tension with interesting characters and their ever-shifting, murky allegiances.
DeBose leads the small cast, acting as the story’s focus and moral core. All the other characters interact with her and it is, more often than not, up to her to guide the audience through the plot’s many machinations. She brings gravitas and likability to her first big screen dramatic role, after winning an Oscar for her work in the musical “West Side Story.”
The rest of the cast add capable support, particularly Asbaek, whose character is torn between duty and the humanity of the situation.
“I.S.S.” is a barebones effort with decent special effects and some good zero gravity visuals, but don’t expect the lavish treatment of a film like “Gravity.” Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite does a lot with a little, effects wise, but is more concerned with the life-and-death, us-vs-them conundrum at the story’s heart as paranoia and suspicion give way to sabotage and betrayal.
There was a time when, to be a hero, all Sylvester Stallone had to do was go a few rounds with Ivan Drago.
How times have changed.
In “Samaritan,” Stallone is a hero of the super variety. He has exceptional strength, is able to jump through walls, bound over lakes of fire and absorb high octane gun fire.
He even has a catchphrase, “Have a blast,” but Marvel, this ain’t.
“Samaritan” is the kind of off-brand superhero flick that used to decorate the shelves at Blockbuster. These days, you’ll find it streaming on Amazon Prime.
Set in Granite City, the movie takes place twenty-five years after the city’s protector, Samaritan, disappeared in the wake of the fight with his enemy Nemesis, opening the door for baddies like Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), who could pass for “Lost Boys” era Kiefer Sutherland, and his gang of ultraviolent goons to take over.
Imagine “The Warriors” but with masked heroes and supervillains.
Unemployment and poverty are on the rise. “It’s only a matter of time until the city implodes,” screams one newscast.
Granite City is also home to teenager Sam (Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton), described by his single mom (Dascha Polanco) as “good, but a little lost.” Sam is obsessed with the story of Samaritan, and is convinced his neighbor, a garbage man named Joe Smith (Stallone), is the superhero in hiding.
Joe denies any connection to the missing crime fighter. “Samaritan is dead,” he grunts. “I just pick up garbage.” But when Sam witnesses Joe survive almost getting snapped in half by a brutal car attack, he is more convinced than ever that his neighbour has special powers.
Over time a father-son bond develops between them and when Cyrus calls for a violent revolution—actually just rioting and looting—Sam pleads with Joe, “You’re the only one who can help.”
Question is, will Joe be able to clean the streets of crime or just pick up trash?
“Samaritan” has a distinct early 90s vibe. There is an undeniable nostalgic rush to the movie’s low-tech effects, villains who cackle with glee at every evil deed and city on the edge vibe. It’s the stuff of George H. W. Bush era direct to video flicks and put me in the mind of the days when I watched movies, rented for a day or two, on rickety old videotapes.
That being aid, “Samaritan” is set-your-expectations-low enjoyable. It is a hoot to hear Stallone explain the biometrics of his superhero body, and even as a lumbering superhero who eats his morning cereal with apple juice, and is afraid to jump off a building out of concern for his knees, the man formerly known as Rocky is a fun watch.
“Outside the Wire,” a new futuristic Netflix movie starring Anthony Mackie, is a run-of-the-mill action flick with more bullets than ideas.
Set in 2036, as “Outside the Wire” begins there is a violent civil war in Eastern Europe. The United States are there as peacekeepers, using robotic soldiers called Gumps to battle a ruthless warlord called Viktor Koval (Pilou Asbæk), the Terror of the Balkans, who may possess a doomsday device. In the midst of this conflict is Lieutenant Thomas Harp (Damson Idris), an U.S.-based drone pilot who makes the difficult, long-distance decision to sacrifice two Marine lives to save thirty-eight others. Instead of being commended for saving lives, an ethics committee sends him to a demilitarized zone in Eastern Europe to experience real combat up-close-and-personal.
He’s assigned to work with Captain Leo (Mackie), a hardnosed veteran who’ll show him the ropes. “War is ugly,” Leo says. “Sometimes you gotta get dirty to see any real change.” The twist is that Leo is only five years old. And no, before you ask, this isn’t a militaristic riff on “The Boss Baby.” Leo is a biotech android, a one-man militia, designed to be smarter, faster and more efficient than everyone else. “My existence is classified,” he tells Harp as they head off on a mission to deliver a vaccine to a cholera break twenty clicks outside the wire. The operation is partly humanitarian, and partly to act as a cover to meet an informant with intel on Koval’s whereabouts.
“Outside the Wire” is a slick mish-mash of “iRobot,” “Chappie” by way of “The Terminator” and modern war movies like “The Kingdom.” The derivative story is a delivery system for a series of clichés, large scale battle scenes and nifty special effects.
The social commentary on the ethics of using drones during wartime and what constitutes acceptable collateral damage feels blunted by the movie’s propensity to blow away soldiers and civilians alike with what must be the highest body count in a movie so far this year. It’s an important and ongoing discussion in the real world but don’t look for answers here, just giant fireballs and the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons.
When the bodies aren’t dropping, the clichés are. It’s as if Leo’s speech functions were programmed by a bot who had watched a 1000 hours of 1940s war movies. He does, however, occasionally deliver a fun line. “I’m not an idiot,” says the “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” star. “That would make me human.”
“Outside the Wire” is a noisy time-waster that could have used some outside the box thinking to make its shop-worn story more effective.
If I have one complaint about “Overlord” it’s that there aren’t enough Nazi zombies. The J.J. Abrams-produced is a smart addition to the sub-sub-sub-sub genre of undead Third Reich films but plays more like one of those episodes of “The Walking Dead” where they talk about the zombies as much, if not more, then battle them.
The film begins with the stuff of 100 war movies. A platoon of young American soldiers, some cocky, some terrified, are aboard a plane, June 1944 just hours before D-Day. Their mission? Locate and bomb a tower located on the top of a church in a tiny French town. Why did the Nazis put this tower on top of the church? “Because they’re evil SOBs.“
When their plane takes serious fire from the Germans the paratroopers bail. A small number of them, including newbie Pvt. Boyce (Jovan Adepo), Cpl. Ford (Wyatt Russell), the de facto leader with 1000 yard stare, gunner (Rosenfeld Dominic Applewhite), war photographer Chase (Iain De Caestecker) and loud mouth Tibbet (John Magaro)—survive the perilous parachute jump into German occupied France. On the ground they dodge bullets and the enemy before connecting with Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier), a French woman who lives with her brother (Gianny Taufer) and aunt in their target town.
There they come into contact with the local SS commander Wafner (Pilou Asbæk) and, after some grizzly discoveries in a Nazi lab, learn of a nefarious plan to create “the blood of eternity” which gives anyone injected with it super strength, immunity to pain and a really bad attitude. “A thousand year Reich needs thousand year soldiers,” snarls Wafner. Question is, the Americans survive the jump, landmines and regular Nazis but can they survive Nazi Zombies?
“Overlord” is a hybrid of styles. An old school war film meets zombie action film is given a Lovecraftian bio-horror twist courtesy of a Josef Mengelesque evil Nazi scientist. It’s pure exploitation; a movie that drips with chemically engineered blood and guts. Director Julius Avery embraces the pulp aspects of the story, from the stereotypically cocky soldier Tibbet to the heroic Ford to the pure evil of Wafner (“They have been given a purpose,” he says. “They will contribute in ways you can’t imagine.”). Combined it adds up to a heightened experience that delivers within the confines of the zombie genre. If only there had been more zombies.
Can you steal someone’s life? It’s the question at the heart of “Ghost in the Shell,” in more ways than one.
Based on the Japanese manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow, it centers around a woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, rescued by scientists at AI robots manufacturer Hanka Robotics and turned into a weaponized cyber-human. “Your body was damaged,” says Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche). “We couldn’t save it, only your brain survived.” Named The Major (more on that later) after her cerebral salvage she leads task force Section 9 who take down cyber terrorists and hackers by any means necessary. “We saved you,” continues Dr. Ouelet, “and now you save others.” The life the Major once knew is over but as the doctor says, “Your mind, your soul and your ghost, that’s still in there.”
On another level “The Ghost in the Shell” steals away the essence of itskmain character. The Major, or Major Motoko Kusanagi as she was referred to in the 1989 manga series and beyond, is a Japanese character in this case being played by the very western Johansson. Director Rupert Sanders dismisses the whitewashing criticism saying, “I feel that [Johansson] channelled the Major better than anyone else I could have thought of. She was my first choice and remains my first choice. She’s the best actress of my generation and her generation and the person I felt most embodied the physicality and the ability to inhabit that role.”
I think Sanders forgot to insert the word “bankable” in there somewhere.
I’m not suggesting that Johansson isn’t a talented actor or capable of pulling off believable and exciting action scenes. In movies like “Lucy” and “Captain America: Civil War” she has credibly occupied the action space, bringing both toughness and acting chops to her roles. That’s not at issue. What is at issue here is that the character is decidedly Japanese. As a human brain in an entirely synthetic body, she is far from, as Johansson claims, “identity-less.” In fact she is the very embodiment of a culture’s fascination with technology and how that technology interacts with humankind. In this case the technology actually becomes human, or perhaps it’s the other way round. Either way, the cyberpunk heroine is a key figure in Asian science fiction and the new “Ghost in the Shell” conveniently ignores that fact.
More thought has been put into creating the world The Major interacts with. A mix of the original anime, “Minority Report,” and “Robocop” with a taste of “Blade Runner” and “The Matrix” thrown in for completists, it’s a sleek near future environment, dense with activity, like in New York City and Hong Kong had a baby.
It is also a place where it’s now possible to control people by hacking directly into their minds. To combat this invasion of the mind, the Major and Co. have their sights set on Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt), a shadowy cyber terrorist who is targeting Hanka scientists. Complicating the mission are nagging memories of The Major’s former life that manifest themselves through a glitch in her wiring. She sees strange visions, sort of sensory echoes that hint at memories just out of reach. They are the ghost in the shell. She’s sort of like a high tech Jason Bourne, deadly with little recall of the past. “Who are you?” asks a woman who may or may not be The Major’s mother. “I don’t know,” Maj says with a faraway look.
To get to the bottom of the artificial intelligence technology conspiracy that landed her with Handa Robotics, The Major goes rogue. “They created me,” she says, “but they cannot control me.”
One of the most popular Japanese animated series of all time, “Ghost in the Shell” is a beautiful looking movie, which, like its main character, is in search of its soul. Director Rupert Sanders has an extraordinary eye, whether he is visualizing the hacking of The Major’s mind, creating a nightmarish nightclub sequence or bringing surreal cityscapes complete with video statues and future world architecture to vivid life. The movie is never less that entertaining for the eye, passing the time in a wild swirl of colour and movement.
It’s a shame the story isn’t as entertaining. Filtered through a Hollywood lens, what was once a seminal work of cyber punk is reduced to a superhero origin story with action scenes aplenty. Most are beautifully staged even though the odd shot feels like out takes from an upcoming Black Widow spin off.
Johansson pulls off the cold efficiency of a machine tempered with emerging human feelings. She’s a killing machine but never more human than when she explores what it feels like to be flesh and blood, not synthetics and wires. Its territory she’s tread before, most notably and more effectively in “Under the Skin” but it’s an otherworldliness that suits the role.
Binoche as the empathetic AI specialist and mother figure is terrific and the legendary ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano isn’t given much to do, but does it with aplomb.
“Ghost in the Shell” is a gorgeous looking film that will engage the eye but not the brain.
