Rating (1.5 out of 5)

Summary: Why Netflix, when you produce a high-quality drama like “Roma” how do you also produce a thinly veiled attempt at science fiction drama like “IO”? There wasn’t any scene or sequence challenging me to question the current way of life, or a future way of life if we don’t change our ways. In fact, “IO” fails to generate any emotion.

Plot: Most of the population of earth has evacuated to IO, except a few pockets of people, in zones where the air is still breathable. The last spaceships leave for IO in 4 days and Sam (Margaret Qualley) and Micah (Anthony Mackie) attempt to fly the hellium balloon to the launch site.

Summary: The movie started well, showing Sam’s routine life, working to create a strain of bees immune to the harmful environment. Every day she dutifully travels into the city, with her oxygen mask, extracting samples and then harvesting honey from the beehives in her clean zone.

Micah has suffered a traumatic loss of loved ones and blames Sam’s father for convincing people to stay and save the earth. A predictable and unmoving plot direction, including an unsuspenseful reveal about her father.

Don’t feel like either character grew any. Rather than painting her as a maverick, her portrait was brushed with generous doses of dull and lifeless. I have seen Ms. Qualley before and in those performances, she sizzled on screen. In the end, her dream, her staying behind, all of it. Just blah.