In The Zone, On The Outer
Sun Herald
Sunday June 9, 2002
SPACE STATION 3D
Rating: G.
Narrated by: Tom Cruise.
Critic's warning: Zero gravity-afflicted hairstyles.
Critic's rating: 7 out of 10.
AFTER past, spotty years, Imax featurettes may be coming into their own. Frequently, these large-format movies play asleftover documentary footage or rehashed tourism advertisements (anyone remember Wild California?).
But with the eye-popping Space Station 3D, the format goes where other conventional documentaries cannot. For movie audiences, it also succeeds in offering the most up-to-date look at the international space station.
The laboratory is the first step in the permanent space station and is being constructed some 352km above Earth.
With funding from 16 nations, the station has enormous significance as a symbol of internationalco-operation.
It's also envisaged as an orbiting research lab and quarantine station for long space jumps such as the recently mooted manned trip to Mars by NASA (America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
The 45-minute film opens with US astronauts training in simulated weightlessness for what will be their main task: construction and connection of the different modules of the station.
The film then follows shuttle and rocket launches from Florida's Kennedy Space Station and Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome. These take the Russian and American crews and the two major modules up to the station.
The best news for space buffs is that the camera gets right inside the station, showing how the astronauts live in this weightless world, from sleeping upright to eating (flying) popcorn.
The film has its lighter moments as zero gravity plays havoc with hair (think instant Afro). It's also a world in which physical strength is immaterial as even the smallest scientist can move huge loads with a flick of a finger.
As the inhabitants float dreamily through the station, viewers get a remarkable look at the interior's nuts and bolts or, rather, its cables and computers.
But there's plenty of exterior action, too, beginning with a space walk simulation which beautifully uses the film's 3D special effects. (And that's a nod from someone who is never happy wearing the uncomfortable 3D headset.)
The shuttle launches, all fiery visuals and blasts of raw noise, play to advantage on thismega-screen. As always, this format scores best in ``fly-over" visuals, looking down on a surrealistically beautiful Earth.
American actor Tom Cruise provides the voice-over. Apart from minor cheesiness (``space is a very special place"), the actor's style is suitably low-key and unobtrusive.
There are dud moments: the film completely misses the moment of actual connection of the two key modules. And viewers should note that this is presented ``in co-operation" with NASA.
However, the novelty of seeing inside the station makes this less of an advertisement and more of an old-fashioned plug for continued public funding.
Ultimately, Space Station 3D counters viewer scepticism. The images of astronauts from different countries all working together gives the film its emotional richness.
It optimistically suggests to weary, war-battered viewers here that the way to the stars might really provide unity on Earth.
© 2002 Sun Herald
