Metacritic reviews

The film doesn’t stop to give the six characters time for major exposition and backstory, which would only get in the way of the film’s B-movie sensibility, accentuating scalpel-edge thrills above all else.

Although its barebones backstories and straightforward storytelling may not leave a massive impact, I.S.S conveys the dangers of space and human desperation in a way that will leave you gasping for oxygen.

While the landing isn’t as smooth as might be hoped for after the exemplary first act, neither does I.S.S. burn up on reentry.

Set on the International Space Station, the movie “I.S.S.” is a modest but satisfyingly suspenseful thriller whose central conflict between the six members of the station’s half-American, half-Russian crew is precipitated by a decidedly earthbound crisis.

While the plot is suspenseful and unsettling because it’s something that could happen, the film underwhelms when it comes to its dynamics and individual arcs, each character lacking a depth that would have elevated an otherwise solid thriller.

Despite the impossible stakes of their situation, the crew’s acts of backstabbing and self-sabotage feel curiously lifeless, bogged down by a completely unnecessary instance of on-the-job romance that comically comes out of nowhere. Though, in fairness, the ensemble gives it their all with committed performances.

The film is in such a rush to get to the bloodshed, deception, and panic that most of the fertile ground of its premise goes unexplored.

Cowperthwaite successfully turns the I.S.S. into a sweaty pressure cooker, but what’s she actually cooking? Not much, unfortunately.

A movie so dumb that it has tricked itself into thinking it is smart enough to be self-knowingly stupid, the new astronaut thriller, I.S.S., is a true waste of inner and outer space.

For a film with such weighty aspirations, I.S.S. lacks gravity.