Space Station

The IMAX 3-D camera tags along on a couple of voyages to the International Space Station, one from Russia’s Star City complex, the other from Cape Canaveral, with a cooperative mix of nationalities among the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard. Produced by Lockheed Martin and NASA and narrated by Tom Cruise, the film itself is the usual IMAX documentary, moderately informative and interesting. With IMAX, however, presentation is everything, and the presentation here is spectacularly effective. The 3-D vistas from orbit, with the space station suspended like a huge set of wind chimes over the great blue globe, are stanzas of breathtaking, awe-inspiring visual poetry—but equally impressive are interior shots, with pens, razors, water bubbles and crew members suspended weightless mid-theater.