Claustrophobic tension as World War III breaks out in space
ARIANA DeBose was propelled to fame by playing Anita in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 version of West Side Story, and now Anita has also propelled her into space.
In I.S.S. (15, 95 mins, HHHII), a taut sci-fi thriller, she plays a NASA astronaut who arrives to work on the International Space Station with two other Americans and three Russian cosmonauts. They’re all getting along splendidly, even having a party (it’s not their fault that there’s no atmosphere), when nuclear war breaks out back on Earth, with their respective countries in the thick of it. The cosmonauts duly receive an order to take over the space station from the ‘enemy’ and so do the Americans, which in truth is one of those sci-fi premises that feels a little too plausible for comfort.
As with any good submarine or prison thriller, the tension derives mainly from the claustrophobic setting, and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite keeps it watchable, with the help of a decent cast also including the always-classy Chris Messina.
ANOTHER worthy cast, with a cameo for Rupert Friend as a media tycoon, cannot help The American Society Of Magical Negroes ( 12A, 104 min, ★★☆☆☆). It’s a twee fantasy which tries for a hard edge by having us believe that all African-Americans are forced by endemic racism to live in subservience to white people.
The ‘Magical Negro’ of the title is an expression used of stock film characters who existed purely to help white folk. Here, a black artist (Justice Smith) is coopted into the society by a kind of fairy godfather. His job is to help a white colleague land the girl of his dreams, only to fall for her himself. In doing so, he learns to fight against the ‘Magical Negro’ trope. Alas, it’s irredeemably silly.