With such Imax credits as writer of Mission to Mir and director of Hubble 3D to her name, Toni Myers is doing as much as any film-maker to map the galaxy’s outer reaches. Her latest large-format eye-opener achieves a breathtaking new perspective on Earthly life by floating cameras among astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Tim Peake’s Twitter feed: mere dilettantism in comparison.
What’s beamed back combines a snapshot of ISS routine – zero-gravity haircare; terrifying external repairs – with an overview of landmasses subject to vivid natural and man-made phenomena: thunderstorms exploding under cloud cover; pollution clogged, veiny rivers; and a telling darkness north of the 38th parallel. Jennifer Lawrence’s narration gets so earnest you might wish she’d sunk at least one rum-and-coke beforehand, but elsewhere dry, rational science is mixed with piquant detail and playful soundtrack choices. The result is the best kind of spectacle: that which encourages us to look up and beyond ourselves – and does so using only organic special effects.
