IO REVIEW: A great cinematic twist of the future, but ultimately fails in thrills…

Margaret Qualley and Anthony Mackie add gravity to a sci-fi drama about a dying Earth that marries admirable ambition with inconsistent plotting…

Netflix describes its newest original film, IO, as set on “post-cataclysmic” Earth. It’s a fitting description – somewhere between ‘oh, what a calamity’ and ‘full apocalypse mode’ and for a film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be.

Too sedate for a post-apocalyptic thriller, yet too barren for a Christopher Nolan-style space and time travel epic, IO appears most like The Martian in that it focuses primarily on one person’s grit and resourcefulness to endure and grow plants in an unforgiving place.

And the Earth in IO is relentlessly unforgiving, a wasteland riddled with abandoned cars and decaying corner marts after “an unexpected change in atmosphere composition” either choked out the humans or drove them into space. Most of the surviving humans reside on a space station orbiting IO, the innermost of Jupiter’s moons (also the name of one of Zeus’ mortal lovers, and your first clue that the movie pours Greek mythology into every other scene).

Directed by Jonathan Helpert, IO details Sam (The Leftovers’ Margaret Qualley), the daughter of a scientist, who meticulously keeps bees and studies genetics, alone, on a mountaintop in one of Earth’s few remaining air pockets. Sam fills her days with data, emails to her IO-residing boyfriend (pointedly named Elon, who’s definitely supposed be a stand-in for Elon Musk), and occasional trips into the Zone, an abandoned city accessible only by ATV and oxygen mask.

This mass exodus happens in waves, with some people leaving sooner than others. Sam opts out completely; she’s determined to find a way to save the dying planet.

Time isn’t on her side though.

Then, everything changes. A message from Elon reveals that the humans on IO are preparing to colonize a new planet, meaning all communication with Earth will end as the final “Exodus” ships bringing humanity off-planet prepare to launch.

With the final shuttle’s departure rapidly approaching, she only has a few days to make a meaningful scientific discovery or face the possibility of being left behind.

As if on cue, another survivor named Micah (Anthony Mackie) shows up in what I can only describe as a steampunk hot air balloon, offering to bring Sam with him to Exodus.

IO is an interesting take on post-apocalyptic survival films. Instead of dwelling on a given threat or offering broad strokes that are reflective of societal ills, it presents a more intimate story, one centered on the importance of human relationships.

The film forgoes the typical struggles associated with the end of the world – bloody exchanges between survivors, for example – and instead, leans on the mundane, such as the quiet moments between the collecting of samples and failed experiments.

It’s here that IO dwells, for better or worse…

The pacing only works in conjunction with Sam and Micah’s interactions.

But…

Qualley and Mackie struggle to find chemistry as two slightly less lonely people in the world, conversing with monotone line-readings while guarding their private denials.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The slow pace and muted thematic tones have reduced the film’s impact and IO never becomes boring (although there are patches that run the risk of dullness), but it’s also not as noteworthy as it could have been either. In the end, IO does offer a somewhat satisfying conclusion — and a halfway decent twist — but by then it’s too late.

2.5/5 STARS