Life

Though it has a nice ending, Life is otherwise just a well-crafted yet routine genre movie that was born out of the possibility to use the audiovisual trends from Gravity. You won’t be bored, as the tension works and the cast is pleasant to look at, but the story is clichéd and the occasional lapses in logic and at least two poorly edited scenes drag the film down to the level of forgettable average. (31.03.2017)

Every year, roaring idiots can look forward to about a dozen almost identical infantile colouring books where a masked clown saves the world from a generic villain, but I would love to look forward to having once a decade a film with a similar budget (and cast and craftsmanship) that will be slightly similar to another film made about 40 years ago. Outrageous! Before the screening, I was hoping for a solid eight (like 8/10), in the end Life is an unconvincing seven, but still fine. I loved the design of the main monster and I enjoyed how several scenes play with zero gravity. In the first half at least, the film looked fairly smart, credible and scientific, but when it switches into thoroughbred B-movie chases (at around the second death), it’s no longer so smart, but what the hell. I also felt that the second half jumps awkwardly between action and “broody” sequences, as if stuff had been edited out so the film would not be too long. Personally, I would’ve also toughened up the horror. The expectation that Life could be something more than a snack before the upcoming Alien – Covenant was not fulfilled. But as a snack, it is pretty decent. (23.03.2017)

An average sci-fi flick with slightly bad film effects. I am mentioning the effects on purpose, because this film is trying to copy the movie Gravity but you can clearly see that it can’t match its quality. On the other hand, the crew is great and all the actors are extraordinary and definitely won’t disappoint you. And the story? It couldn’t be simpler. It is a classic horror storyline where everybody dies in the end. (18.12.2017)

When I do something, I do it properly, not like Daniel Espinosa. He can indeed direct sci-fi with six heroes that looks magnificent and all those flyovers of the space station are quite impressive, but story-wise, it's a bit lacking. Life seems to balance between two genres. For a while, it plays at serious sci-fi, and a few scenes later, we have a decent horror-trash B-movie. Unfortunately, the film doesn't bring anything surprising or something we haven't seen before in either of these approaches. If Espinosa leaned more into the trashiness or tried to make Life something more thoughtful and steered it in a different direction than B-movie, it would be fine. And it would probably significantly justify the existence of the film itself. As it is, it's a nice-looking sci-fi flick with a chestburster that will only be mentioned in a few years in connection with lists of films that attempted to steal from Alien. (15.05.2017)

Life is missing... life. Although it has a very nice liquid first scene and a very ambitious artistic aspect, even the olm that mutates into an octopus from the second floor is said to correspond to scientific knowledge. However, the rhythm of the film, which has the pace of a beginner driving at a driving school, certainly does not correspond to scientific knowledge. I really don't consider the alternation of tiring and awkward dialogues and action scenes to be the rhythm I want to indulge in in a similar thriller, especially when the motivation for the action is getting more ridiculous every minute. The fact that it’s a B-movie wouldn’t matter - if it hadn't been covered in the needless coat of attempts to create a contemplative A-movie, and if Espinosa hadn't directed with a ruler in his ass, it could have been at least as funny as in the first scenes. (22.03.2017)

In moments when Daniel Espinosa attempts bouncing gravity steps, I mutter to myself something about missed ambitions, but as soon as inspiration from a certain legendary space creature fully manifests, it's a win. The tension doesn't let up even for a moment, Jake Gyllenhaal holds his own even in scenes full of seemingly meaningless dialogue, and even a good few hours after it's over, the thought-provoking conclusion continues to linger, forcing me to contemplate the causes and consequences. (24.03.2017)

After Gravity I guessed that somebody would someday film Alien in a similar style… it’s hard not to like Calvin and he’s the main hero of the entire movie and also one of few to behave with any logic. Otherwise this is a classic showcase of bad decisions when the rescuers eliminate themselves first. In acting terms excellent, Reynolds has a few great lines and Gyllenhaal is practically flawless, Rebecca Ferguson awesome. Apart from the lackluster events in the middle, a fascinated study of human mistakes. The ending is great, if only there hadn’t been the spoilers before it came out. Overall quite satisfactory. (25.08.2017)

A mix of Gravity and Alien, intended to be dominated by man-eating plankton. There can't be much talk about originality, because the creators have obviously had a look at older pieces as well as the new, modern Gravity. The space walks and the destruction of the station are basically indistinguishable from Cuaron's opus (so cool), while the case after the module and the motion sensors look like right out of Alien. And of course there must be a racially and nationally diverse squad of astronauts (gradually dying) and at least twice in the film it must be mentioned that developed countries like Russia, USA, China are involved – exactly in that order! The ending is gratifying but not surprising. Just like Rebecca Ferguson. It’s a thematically heavy sci-fi flick that turns into light entertainment for any given evening. (16.06.2017)

Very nice cinematography evoking Lubezki’s work with space and a nice pace, which, however, hand in hand with the dull character profiles and the bland appearance of the space creature, makes Life a hilarious piece of B-grade sci-fi fantasy. The tension is there, but compared to Scott's claustrophobic Alien, it's just a miniature concoction worthy of oblivion. (08.12.2017)

The inspiration (and maybe even a slight rip-off) of Aliens and Gravity is unmistakable, and even though Life doesn't reach the quality of either of the aforementioned films, it's still a solidly suspenseful hundred minutes, during which I was really rooting hard for the mostly (with one exception) likeable cast as they battled the supremely intelligent and extremely dangerous "alien". Maybe I would have shortened the reflections on life a bit and added more nerve-wracking scenes, but I still sat glued to my seat. And I definitely have to commend the ending, which made my racing heart applaud. In short, a film that is technically well done, with good performances and script, and one that is really worth seeing in the cinema. (02.04.2017)

With Life, it wouldn't matter that it's actually just a more bombastic slasher, that the actors are playing themselves from other roles, that the alien entity wakes to life automatically with blueprints of the orbital station in its head, that the behavior of the hyper-trained astronauts is very "Welcome to Jackass" from the start, or perhaps that it's actually a collage of dozens of motifs from other films. Namely, perhaps all of them. The problem with Life is that it has no charisma. It has no space, time, or character. The space station is generic, uninteresting, spatially unutilized. A crew made up of dummies, where everyone has a clear role they never step out of. The alien creature may use its entire body as receptors, but it still has to have a bleh bleh alien head and dozens of other tedious micro-details that together are responsible for making the movie just not matter. Espinosa has adapted into a director who understands technology and form, yet he doesn't reach into the scripts and merely executes them, which grossly backfires here because the writing is really left-handed (an absolutely terrible conversation between Gyllenhaal, Bakar, and Ferguson about nothing, where after every sentence there's a five-second dramatic pause to reveal it in full nakedness). It's a shame, especially because old-school space horror movies that don't aspire to philosophize themselves to death are a like saffron, and here the true orbital fear of something unknown out there has already been set up. Those who are happy with the girl just being pretty probably can't complain, but I'd just prefer it if she was a little fun to talk to. (28.06.2017)

I'm giving the film three stars, because I like sci-fi and scary fights with alien entities. Plus, Rebecca Ferguson was part of the space expedition, which I obviously had to take into account. I didn't give more stars because there was no trace of horror, and after a while, all that flying through the space station with a weird jellyfish hot on one’s heels (even literally sometimes) started to get a bit tedious. (24.05.2020)

Life is a good sci-fi horror film that has everything you expect. Enclosed space, slightly different physical laws, a pretty good monster, and interesting actors who can carry it until the end, so you won't get bored. Plot-wise, however, it's like a combination of Alien and Gravity and script-wise it's unfortunately expected. But it's got a great point. (07.07.2017)