DVD 47 mins IMDB 7.4

In Collection
#273

Documentary

Tom Cruise	Narrator
Michael J. Bloomfield	Himself
Robert D. Cabana	Himself
Leroy Chiao	Himself
Kenneth D. Cockrell	Himself
Robert L. Curbeam
Brian Duffy	Himself
Marc Garneau	Himself
Michael L. Gernhardt	Himself
Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko	Himself
Robert L. Curbeam Jr.	Himself
Michael E. Lopez-Alegria
James D. Wetherbee
Scott E. Parazynski

Director	Toni Myers
Producer	Judy Carroll; Graeme Ferguson; Toni Myers
Writer	Toni Myers

The partnership with NASA and IMAX films continues with a tour of the next step in space exploration: the International Space Station (ISS). Sixteen countries helped build this giant station (still being built upon the film's release in 2004). We see the first building blocks being constructed, including shots from inside the slick NASA shuttle launches to the friendly informalities of the Russian program. The crystal-clear pictures of the station and the Earth are the best aspects of this film. The entertaining footage delivers human elements, but sometimes the carefulness of experimentation makes for boring photography; a test of a super-cool jet pack has the astronaut moving mere inches. To the film's benefit, the narrator is Tom Cruise with a script tailored to his strong suits (the first line of "What an incredible sight!" is vintage Cruise). The film is also so light on its feet with a nice dose of music, including "Up on the Roof" and the Talking Heads "Naive Melody," that it makes up for the staginess of some of the scenes. The film was shown in 3-D in theaters but only 2-D for home video. --Doug Thomas