Life – Review

*Minor Spoilers*

Life… the little Alien film that could.
When it was originally announced and I saw the trailer, I immediately thought “this is a bit of me”. It was labelled as a science fiction horror where an organism runs havoc on board the international space station. The trailer looked good and all was going well until the film was released and the reviews came out for it. The movie received mixed reviews. Most of them said that it was a bit of a rip-off of the original Alien film, only not as good, while others said that it was “okay” and “enough to keep your hunger at bay until the release of Alien: Covenant a few months later.
I did not go to see this at the cinema. I am sure that anyone who fancied watching this film has probably already seen it and this review might seem a bit redundant. But after waiting ages to watch it (I didn’t care if it was not going to be that great. It was still the kind of film that I like the premise of, so sod it, I want to see it), I finally got around to watching it. I am sorry to say that I was a little tempted to watch a stream copy of it, but after waiting so long already, it would have felt like a little bit of a waste.
When I finally did get down to watching it, something strange happened. A foreign feeling grabbed a hold and fed off of me. I actually really enjoyed it to my surprise. Going in with the mind set that it might not be that great did help.

By the time that the credits rolled, I felt satisfied, not only for actually waiting, but for the fact that the film delivered exactly what I personally wanted from it. Okay, yeah, it was a copy/pasted repeat of the premise of the original Alien film, there is no denying that, but I honestly think that Life did change it enough to really make it their own.
I think the main reason I enjoyed this film so much was because it really did quench my appetite for an Alien film, more so than Alien: Covenant offered. If you have read my review for Covenant, then you would know that I was not the biggest fan of it. Being a fan boy of the Alien series and the lore of it, I was incredibly disappointed with Covenant. Nearly everything in that film was wrong for me, and perhaps that helped to make me enjoy Life that little bit more (enjoy the film Life, I mean, I still hate life in general).
I think that watching it this way around (Covenant and then Life) turned out to be the much better option. Watching Life first would have geared me up for Covenant, only to be disappointed further. This was the right move and I encourage anyone who has seen Covenant to do the same. This is definitely a contributing factor as to why I did enjoy this film and am currently giving it a rather positive review, so remember that my opinion has been tainted by this and very few people will have seen Life under the same circumstances.

I am sorry to keep going on about Alien all the time and using this as an excuse to continue my rant over the let down that was Alien: Covenant, but I feel that this is a very important factor due to the similarities between Alien and Life. In all honesty I think that Life was the Alien film that Alien: Covenant should have been. The premise of Covenant was a return to the series roots (which it did not deliver), where as with Life, the creators wanted to recreate what made the original Alien great. For me it was the journey into the unknown. I will touch on this further in a moment, but the general fact that you did not know what the creature was going to do, or what it would become next, was brilliant portrayed, almost as good as Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic.

So the story follows a group of six astronaut/scientists on board the international space station orbiting over Earth. A probe from Mars, carrying soil samples, arrives back to the station and the crew are studying it when they discover a microscopic organism living within it, giving humanity proof that there is extraterrestrial life beyond Earth (this all happens within the first twelve minutes of the film). Although the life form is only a cell, so it is not really anything to write home about. Of course they do write home about it and the planet is united in celebration. Apparently there was a competition for American schools to choose a name for the organism, for which they decide to call it Calvin. So for the purpose of this review, I will refer to it as Calvin, as I have said the word ‘Alien’ far too much already, so I will try and not mention it any more.
Anyway, it turns out that Calvin is more than meets the eye, and he begins to get bigger and the chaos starts not long after.

The small cast, including Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, worked incredibly to its favour. Rather than having characters quickly killed off in the middle of large set pieces (much like that other film I will no longer mention), Life did not kill anyone off without at first getting the audience used to them. We are given quite a bit of character building and even grow to like a couple of them before the carnage begins (around the twenty five minute mark, so the audience are not waiting too long in this hour and forty minute film for some blood).

Ryan Reynolds tries a little too hard to be funny for my liking. After Deadpool I decided to cut the guy a little bit of slack, but whenever I see him in something else, I am reminded of a time when I couldn’t stand the guy.
Jake Gyllenhaal is on the opposite end of the spectrum. His character is a bit of a nobody and tends to fade into the background. His character was also bloody useless. Everything he did be messed up, even one of the bigger moments late in the film he still managed to cock up.
The film did a great job of luring the audience into a false sense of security, by making us think we know who the main character is going to be, but then kills them off. It did this a couple of times throughout the film and, rather than creating a Ripley-esc clone from that movie series, Life never establishes a single protagonist, which is quite unique considering the famous actors that it has amongst the small cast.

When Calvin runs a muck on the station, the writers did a great job of making the audiences’ minds wander. Since the creature is something entirely new, we have no idea what exactly it is capable of.
It starts its life as a small entity, but through the course of the film, it evolves and changes so much that we never know what it is going to be like the next time the characters encounter it. This was what I meant when I said that it captured and recreated the original Ridley Scott film almost perfectly. I say almost as it does not have the same terrifying feeling that the Xenomorph gave the audience the first time it used its extra mouth to punch a hole through Harry Dean Stanton’s head all those years ago, but Calvin is still quite a formidable foe, despite the name.
Not knowing what Calvin was going to do to its victims, how it can be hurt or destroyed, and not knowing how big he would become, was a great aspect that really did help Life out.

Other than being torn apart by it, the film also touched on a few other good deaths. Almost drowning in coolant fluid inside a space suit would be a horrific way to die, and I came away with a lot of food for thought and inspiration.
A few deaths felt a little needless and did make me raise an eyebrow once or twice. For example, one character, who sacrifices themselves to save a few others, clearly has a far better chance of getting rid of creature entirely, but instead all they do is let themselves die and just hinder Calvin for a few moments. It felt like a bit of a waste. It was a good death though I must admit, but if you were going to do that anyway, then you would have tried to take Calvin down with you.

There was a few times throughout the course of the film that I did feel that the characters fell into the stupidity levels that people have gotten bored at with classic horror movies. Running up the stairs where there is no possible escape, or not stabbing the masked killer when they are down, are a few of the pitfalls that horror writers have to avoid when making a movie in that genre, and unfortunately Life does make a few of these types of human errors, which is rather frustrating considering that the characters are suppose to be quite intellectual people. Whilst the film doesn’t suffer from the more Cliché silly horror character decision, a couple of these are still present in one way or another to fit within the setting. One example of this is that a few times in the film, the characters could have easily escaped if they had put a little more effort in. At one point, early in the movie, they have Calvin trapped inside a well contained area, but of course a character is trapped in there as well. The crew won’t open the door due to quarantine procedures. Now the character trapped inside is sporting a flame-thrower (as all space ventures require one) and is using it to keep the creature at bay. A few moments later he has his back to the door (which the crew are behind and could easily open as they did early in the scene), with the creature far enough away, which he could have used to escape, however, he chooses to continue trying to do hurt the creature, after already establishing he cannot do any damaged to it.
Of course you could argue that Calvin could have slivered over and got out when they did open the door, but it felt like they could have easily got out.
The same character also decides to look in a cupboard moments later, despite the fact that their flame-thrower have just informed them that it was out of juice. Frankly anyone who makes these kinds of decisions gets whatever is coming to them.

Another thing I was not overly keep on was the fact that Calvin was ridiculously intelligent despite only being only a few days old and spending that time living inside a small containment box. It managed to use tools to help it escape and knew to leave a deceased character in a space suit alone the moment that their heart stopped beating (which we heard via a machine that monitored the suit’s vital signs). Calvin instantly knew that his prey was no longer alive, despite the fact that the body would have still been warm, and went off to attack someone else.
Another notable mention is whether he intended to cut the space suits fluid pipe intentionally, or was it simply a beneficial coincidence? Just how intelligent is Calvin?
I suppose in the grand scheme of things that is the point; we simply do not know. It is a double edged sword in that respect in the fact that Calvin could easily be telepathic or absorb information and knowledge from its victims, allowing it to make such clever decisions. The fact that we do not know if the creature hunts because it requires them for food or growth, or if it is doing it because it feels threatened. So I suppose I will have to let it off.

Overall I really enjoyed this film, much more than I was expecting to (and much more than that other movie). I would suggest this film to anyone who likes that one movie series, or sci-fi/horror in general. The ending was satisfying and I did come away from it feeling as if I had not just wasted my time, as I have done with many films in the past.
The ending of the film was actually pretty good. I won’t obviously ruined it, but I thought it was a great way for them to end it, as sometimes movies like this can lose momentum in the last act and leave us feeling a bit disheartened no matter how good the first half of the film was (see: Danny Boyle’s: Sunshine – 2007).
I actually had a really good idea for a sequel, before the film gave us the ending they chose to use, and although it was going to rip off that extraterrestrial creature film series further (in for a penny, in for a pound), then it would have been a fantastic way to continue the franchise. The way the movie ending was fine in itself and so there are easily possibilities available, should they continue with the story, although I think maybe to a few bad review and nesting in the shadow of Alien: Covenant (sorry, I just couldn’t help it any more!), I can see Life ending before it even got a chance at life itself.

At the end of the day you can do a lot worse than Life. I personally really enjoyed it and if you were interested in seeing it, or are now interested thanks to me, then I would definitely recommend it. Much like the Calvin itself, what started off as a small and simple entity, maybe even one that has come before, it grows and establishes itself here on the screen, despite falling a little short of the original film it drew inspiration from, however, and as a great man once said: “Life, umm… finds a way”.