I.S.S.

Name: I.S.S.
Item: I.S.S.
Author: Lillie Jaenchen

"Taut Thriller Among the Stars"

Family Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

I.S.S. takes place aboard the titular International Space Station, where three American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts work together to conduct scientific research in orbit around the planet Earth. Newcomer Kira Foster gets settled in just in time for a nuclear war to break out between the United States and Russia on the surface below. Both the American and Russian sides are given orders to abandon their scientific duties and seize control of the I.S.S. by force. The six scientists wrestle with their orders and fight to escape being killed by the other side.

Few movies can hold such depth and tension with a single location and a small cast of characters as well as I.S.S. does. The impressive camerawork effortlessly immerses viewers in the station’s zero-gravity environment. The movie transcends its low budget to create an epic, thought-provoking story with high entertainment value. I.S.S. has strong positive themes of loyalty and seeing the humanity in other people despite their political allegiance. However, it’s unsuitable for young viewers given the movie’s strong foul language and intense violence. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for I.S.S.

Content:

(BB, Ho, LL, VV, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview and theme of loyalty, stated as, “The important thing is that we stick together,” movie promotes loyalty to one’s friends over following orders, and urges humanizing the people on the other side of a political conflict, but a woman vaguely mentions having been “engaged” to a woman;

Foul Language:

13 obscenities (including six “f” words), one strong profanity using Jesus, and three light profanities;

Violence:

Four people are murdered, one by being struck on the head with an oxygen tank, two by stabbing with hand tools, and one by strangulation, plus a man is stabbed through the hand;

Sex:

A woman vaguely mentions having been “engaged” to a woman, who cheated on her multiple times with a third woman;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

Two scenes of drinking hard liquor;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Verbal reference to a divorced parent bad-mouthing the other parent to their children, plus some deception and betrayal.

More Detail:

I.S.S. takes place aboard the titular International Space Station, where three American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts work together to conduct scientific research in orbit around the planet Earth. A newcomer to the station, Kira Foster, gets settled in just in time for a nuclear war to break out between the United States and Russia on the surface below. Both the American and Russian sides are given orders to abandon their scientific duties and seize control of the I.S.S. by force. The six scientists wrestle with their orders and fight to escape being killed by the other side.

Few movies can hold such depth and tension with a single location and a small cast of characters as well as I.S.S. does. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite delivers flawless pacing of every beat from start to finish. The camerawork is also particularly impressive, with movement that effortlessly immerses viewers in the station’s zero-gravity environment. I.S.S. is hard proof that an insightful filmmaker doesn’t need a massive studio war chest or extravagant computer-generated imagery to create an epic, thought-provoking story with high entertainment value.

I.S.S. has strong positive themes of loyalty and seeing the humanity in other people despite their political allegiance. However, it’s unsuitable for younger viewers because of the movie’s strong foul language, which includes six “f” words and one strong profanity, and its intense violence, which includes four murders. Also, in one scene, a woman vaguely mentions she was engaged to another woman, who cheated on her. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for I.S.S.

Watch I.S.S. →

Quality:

- Content: -2