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Space Station

(Docu)

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

Helmer Toni Myers uses astronaut-shot footage in Imax pic "Space Station," which shows the evolution of the Int'l Space Station.

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An Imax release of an Imax and Lockheed Martin presentation in cooperation with NASA. Produced by Toni Myers. Consulting producer, Graeme Ferguson. Directed by Toni Myers.

Narrator: Tom Cruise.
With: Leroy Chiao, Kenneth D. Cockrell, Robert L. Curbeam Jr., Brian Duffy, Michael L. Gernhardt, Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko, Umberto Guidoni, Chris A. Hadfield, Susan J. Helms, Charles Owen Hobaugh, Marsha S. Ivins, Thomas D. Jones, Janet Lynn Kavandi, James L. Kelly, Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev, Steven W. Lindsey, Yuri Valentinovich Lonchakov, Michael E. Lopez-Alegria, William Surles McArthur Jr., Pamela Ann Melroy, Scott E. Parazynski, Mark L. Polansky, James F. Reilly II, Paul William Richards, William M. Shepherd, Joseph R. Tanner, Andrew S.W. Thomas, Yury Vladimirovich Usachev, James S. Voss, Koichi Wakata, James D. Wetherbee, Peter J.K. Wisoff.

This latest entry from the team responsible for nearly every Imax space docu ("Destiny in Space," "Blue Planet," "Mission to MIR") is like a really, really high-tech version of a high school class trip to the planetarium. For, as genuinely awe-inspiring as so much of the footage in "Space Station" is, the Tom Cruise-voiced narration is dry and the presentation is predictable overall. Like so many Imax pics, the logistics and technology of this production -- the making of a film in space with the enormous clarity and depth-of-field afforded by the 3-D Imax frame -- are more impressive than the end product; it might be more interesting to see a movie about the making of this movie than the movie itself. But pic is a natural for space junkies and class field trips and should see enough business to sport returns perfectly in line with the Imax norm.

Culled from footage shot over three years (1998-2001), pic charts the evolution of the Intl. Space Station, built by some 16 nations working in unison to provide a permanent research base for studying the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body and the feasibility of exploring the planet Mars. Divvied up into three basic sections, pic begins by documenting the construction of the actual ISS modules and their subsequent launches into orbit.

Next is the arrival of the "construction crew" -- a team of astronauts aboard the shuttle Discovery who install plumbing and wiring for the station's first inhabitants. Finally, the station's first two resident crews, known respectively as Expedition-1 and Expedition-2, arrive to road test this technological marvel.

The typically brief Imax running time allows for only a brief gloss over each of these mission components, but it doesn't take more than a few seconds to be struck by the incredible sensory immersion of the Imax experience. In this case, that's something of a joke on the audience, because the dazzling opening sequence of the film -- apparently shot from the p.o.v. of an astronaut performing a space-walk -- is in fact a simulation from NASA's virtual-reality lab at the Johnson Space Center.

All the "real" footage that follows is not quite as dizzying, but it still can make your jaw drop. Director-producer Toni Myers and her crew (most of the actual shooting was done by the astronauts and by cameras permanently mounted in the various space shuttles' cargo bays) have a good command of 3-D's trompe l'oeil possibilities. (At points, debris from a shuttle launch and runaway bits of food from a space-station dinner fly at the audience.)

In-between, pic cuts back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to detail the strenuous physical training and other ground work. And the enormity of the Imax image is equally well-suited to filming the 6 million-gallon water tank that allows astronauts to simulate a zero-gravity environment while working on a life-size space-station replica.

But "Space Station" is never fully compelling on a human level, despite profiles of the astronauts and tidbits from their backgrounds. Featurette length prevents it from building a sense of the ISS' emotional components as effectively as it captures the cold, steely apparatuses themselves, and, in the end, pic falls well short of the high-water mark set by the granddaddy of all space exploration docus, Al Reinert's "For All Mankind." Still, there's little doubt that space and Imax (particularly 3-D Imax) are a natural pairing.

Camera (CFI color, Imax 3-D), James Neihouse, various astronauts; music, Micky Erbe, Maribeth Solomon; associate producer, Judy Carroll; second unit director, James Neihouse. Reviewed at the Bridge, L.A., April 22, 2002. Running time: 46 MIN.

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