Life, 2017.
Directed by Daniel Espinosa.
Starring Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya.
SYNOPSIS:
A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars, and now threatens the crew and all life on Earth
When the trailers for Life first started dropping, the comparisons to seminal sci-fi horror Alien were inevitable. A group of astronauts find alien life and all hell breaks loose pretty much sums up both films, however, they do differ in a lot of ways (both positive and negative). Alien is a superbly crafted and original film which blends high concept sci-fi with horror and drama. Whilst Life can’t claim to be original, it does offer enough new little twists for it to stand alone in its own right.
A group of astronauts (in what we must assume is present day or if not only slightly in the future) are at the International Space Station ready to collect a series of samples that a probe from Mars is delivering back. A stunning one shot opening from Espinosa sets up the team and the tension perfectly as they race to catch up the probe and for the horror to begin. From there it’s business as usual as they find alien life and start doing tests. In a disgusting body horror moment, team member Hugh (Bakare) is attacked by the alien (named Calvin) in an unsettling and highly tense scene. Life progresses at lightning speed with Calvin evolving and picking off the team members in various ways. Whilst there are a few dialogue heavy scenes that don’t quite work, the action is taught and the pace doesn’t let up. The films ultimate conclusion is bombastic and horrifying and I loved it.
Where Life struggles is in its characters. They are all extremely bland and we don’t get to find out much about them. Whilst no one feels like fodder, this is largely because a majority of the cast are recognisable, we don’t learn much about our heroes at all. Gyllenhaal’s Doctor David Jordan gets some back story development but everyone else is there purely to provide a function on the ISS and nothing more. Interestingly the character I wanted to find out more about was Hugh (Bakare). On Earth Hugh is paralysed from the waist down and it’s an interesting idea to take someone with that condition and make them weightless.
Where Life truly succeeds is in its score from Jon Ekstrand; a deafening and intense score throughout elevates Life to a whole new level. The truly horrifying body gore moments are supported with a weighty score which adds tension and helps lift the whole film.
Life doesn’t break any new ground in terms of plot but a decent cast, phenomenal score, good direction and a cracker of an ending make it an enjoyable movie. It did get me thinking, who would win in a fight between Calvin and the Xenomorph?
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Helen Murdoch
Kwan Leflore says
Horrible review, just by mentioning, Alien, points out the fact that you don’t know much about these types of movies. There are thousands of aliens on a spaceship horror movies, and this one is nothing like Alien.
The science in this movie is phenomenal. Alien was a pure fiction story. This is a “what could be” dramatization. The Europa Report would be more like this movie, even, Infini, but certainly not Alien.
Life is ground breaking and original, Alien was not original at all, except it was on a spaceship, and thats about all that they had in common.
Gary@FlickeringMyth says
I’m genuinely baffled how you think this is groundbreaking and original but Alien wasn’t.
Kwan Leflore says
This movie had a super intelligent, highly evolved bacteria. This was never done before. Actual physics and biology was implemented. It wasn’t just some creature out of the mind of a teenager. The crew were attempting to contain and survive. Never before have I saw a movie, that was about containing an entity while above the planet. This used an actual space station, that is real and does exist. This was not a fairy tale of a movie, as was Alien. No one was hunting this thing down with guns and such. This movie is about what can actually happen as we go frolicking around our solar system. This is something that we should actually be worried about. That is completely ground breaking in every way possible. The Europa Report was closer related to this film, but even that was not as real of a threat as this movie, since it was on a Saturn moon, using theoretical science and fictional equipment. Life used all actual equipment, actual science, and actual crew reactions, although, I would have sacrificed the first guy, immediately and launched the immature state of Calvin at the first sign of an issue. And one last thing, Calvin didn’t even kill anyone, except the first guy, who was attempting to incinerate it. I bet in part two, we will find out he is actually peaceful.
This movie was nothing like Alien. Besides the fact that the setting was in space and there was a creature hunting them down. The Alien was killing, Calvin was surviving.