Genre: Horror/ Thriller/ Science Fiction
Runtime: 104 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds
Description: A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars and now threatens all life on Earth.
Review: Trying to bring back dead tissue to life, is probably not a good idea. There are many examples in film history that proof that. In “Life” they find organism on Mars, which they manage to bring to life. And off course, everything goes wrong after that.
“Life” gets exciting and has tension very early in the film. During the openings scene we see how the crew of an international space station try to catch a capsule with a mechanical arm. On board there are samples of the planet Mars, with proof there is life on Mars. The first organism they bring to life they call Calvin.
At first, Calvin is hard to see with the naked eye. It manages to adapt to its environment quickly. It also causes a bizarre accident in the lab and isn’t as friendly as they thought. It starts feeding of off the flesh of the astronauts and gets bigger and stronger by the hour.
It’s clear director Daniel Espinosa was inspired by movies like “Alien” and “Gravity”. He uses the claustrophobic rooms of the space ship to create extra fear and the extra-terrestrial life prefers to enter a human’s body through its mouth. But there are also crucial differences: we get to see the alien a lot more and the characters don’t all have that depth. Although we do see the monster often, it doesn’t always make it less scary. “Life” works perfectly as a popcorn film. The tempo is high and never manages to collapse.
Rebecca Ferguson and especially Jake Gyllenhaal, really steal the show. Their performances are strong. And I rated this movie higher than I expected, because of the ending.
Rating: 3,5/ 5
