Life

I'm seeing a few negative reviews for this one that I don't understand. Life isn't a cinematic masterpiece exactly, but it's thrilling enough to hold your attention for one hundred minutes. The story is simple: something horrible gets on a space ship and wants to waste the crew. We don't know much about it or how it thinks except that it's extremely hostile and needs oxygen. After the very well-paced and beautifully-executed set-up the remainder of the film consists of the humans trying to outwit and destroy this thing. And that's it. It doesn't get boring. It does the job. It has a couple of pointless moments we don't really need amidst the exciting chaos, and then it rumbles to a slightly weak finish. You don't except a mind-shattering gourmet meal when you order a cheeseburger and shouldn't get bent out of shape when this isn't Alien or 2001. It's a very solid film. Switch brain off and give a go if you like space stuff. No much else to say.

I'm not going to talk about the creature itself and how real or unreal it is. It being unrealistic was something I accepted going in and I like to give sci-fi movies a bit of latitude to keep things well... sci-fi. HOWEVER... the characters left me face-palming all the way through. Don't you just love how so many of these "important-space-missions-gone-wrong" films seem to involve putting together a group of individuals who seem like they were random people plucked off the street, reality TV show style? Clearly these individuals are *not* well-trained, well-educated, mentally stable people you'd spend billions of dollars on sending into space. From the trailers you already know this is a show about fail-safes failing to contain a creature. What it doesn't show is how many times these people screw up, and in such unbelievable ways... assuming they are actual astronauts who are also scientists, engineers etc and undergone rigorous training. I also don't buy the "people want to relate to characters, so they should be like the average person" argument here, as this setting is not the time and place for that nonsense. SPOILERS (but I honestly feel you're better off reading these and save yourself a couple hours) * The thing is growing pretty freaking fast... so let's just keep feeding it more and more! * You're dealing with an unknown creature growing rapidly with unknown capabilities, so the only containment between you and it is a rubber glove. Great. * The housing for said creature has zero fail safes to destroy it (ex. incinerate) if things get out of hand... OR there was one but the characters just sat there watching it the whole time without doing anything at all. * Quarantine procedures? Hah, i'm emotional and want to open the door anyway. * Guy from above point goes in (with zero protection), picks up a mini-flamethrower, and starts going at it like he's trying to light up a forest. * What kind of bio/chem lab built for testing unknown space viruses and organisms is not completely isolated and air-tight? This one apparently. With pipes openly leading into the the rest of the space station, and just a single door to get in (no second door or airlock mechanism for quarantine/de-contamination). Oh and of course the housing for the creature didn't have this mechanism either for putting things in and taking them out. * When the creature breaks out of the lab the characters have no idea where it is and instead of being on the alert and securing themselves they go about repairing other things on the space station as if the creature weren't even loose. I guess this is a great way to slowly kill off characters if that was the goal. * When trying to isolate themselves from the creature they started duct-taping spaces between wall panels. Um... this creature can crush a human and almost break apart metal. Have these guys been paying attention at all? Also they don't seem to have any systematic means of slowly closing off airlocks to isolate the creature away from them... the film just shows them seemingly randomly closing doors. Oh obviously this is why the creature ends up showing up in the one room they were trying to isolate themselves in. * What seems like less than an hour after they call for help, a Soyuz capsulte shows up (super unrealistic... but whatever, given everything else, I was ok with this) and attempts to push the space station away from Earth to contain the threat. Of course, another guy has to become irrational and with zero idea where the creature is, open the Soyuz capsule door and let the creature into it killing the people in it. * Creature makes it to Earth in an escape pod that was meant to go into deep space. People come by and clearly see the creature inside. What is their first instinct? Try to open the door ASAP to let it out of course! The end. Ok that's enough, you get the idea. This became painful to sit through, leavining me cringing all the way through as the dumbest things kept happening one after another. Thankfully I watched this on Netflix so I could skip ahead. The only reason this gets some stars is I thought the visual effects were well done.

"Life" is one of those type of movies that snuck under my radar. I hadn't even heard about it prior to it being released. And I got the chance to watch it by sheer luck. So of course I did so, because I do love watching movies. And with the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds on the cast list, what's not to like? First of all, I must state that the story presented in "Life" was actually surprisingly good and interesting. It is the type of movie that creeps under your skin and sticks with you, leaving you wanting to see more. A Sci-Fi movie is bound to have great CGI, especially if it is a movie that is reliant on proper effects, which was the case of "Life". So luckily they had a great budget for the CGI and special effects, and it bore fruit. The CGI was amazing in the movie and it all looked so life-like and realistic, all which definitely contributed to the overall enjoyment and outcome of the movie. Which leads me on to the creature design. Wow. Just wow! I don't know how to explain or detail this, because it is something that has to be seen and experienced with your own two eyes. "Life" is a very intense movie experience. Of course they had a rather impressive cast ensemble to perform in the movie. With the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds, you know it is going to be good. This is the type of Sci-Fi movie that combines horror in a nice way, and it is definitely a movie that is well worth investing time and money in, if you haven't already seen it.

I've been reading reviews of this movie and it seemed many people didn't like it because they thought this carbon/water based creature was unrealistic. Nothing can survive the vacuum of space, extreme cold and extreme heat, no water and food for years, etc... but there IS an organism that can do that. It's called a "tardigrade" - this little creature can survive lethal amounts of radiation, 1 degree above absolute zero temperature, it can turn its body into glass to survive extreme dehydration, it can survive the vacuum of space and the pressure of many hundreds of meters underwater and survive above boiling temperature. Coincidentally, shortly after learning about this fascinating creature I came across the movie "Life", and that's probably why I love it so much. What would happen if a hostile alien with the durability of a tardigrade and a lethality of a xenomorph decided to hunt us down? I was thrilled at the prospect! Although some will fault some of the poor choices of the characters, I found them on par with the choices of "Alien:Covenant" characters, but I wasn't going to fault the movie because the premise intrigued me so much. I for one, found it an exciting and thrilling movie!!

When I first heard of this movie the first thing that came to mind was a list of movies that had the same similar concept of Ridley Scott's original Alien. They are... CREATURE, FORBIDDEN WORLD, GALAXY OF TERROR, CONTAMINATION, INSEMIOID, LIFEFORCE, ROOTS SEARCH, STAR CHRYSTAL, DEEPSTAR SIX, PARASITE, SPECIES, LEVETHIN, 51, EVENT HORIZON, PANDORUM, PITCH BLACK, DARK UNIVERSE, OUTLANDER, EUROPA REPORT, and let's throw in SUPERNOVA and SUNSHINE for good measure. My point is all these moves have pretty much ripped off Alien in some way or another... A crew is on a mission in a remote area (space, underwater, a city or the frontier) and they come across a creature that kills them off one by one. SO what did LIFE bring to the table that was new? What did LIFE cover that none of these other films cover? What made major stars Ryan Renolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Rebecca Ferguson want to star in a movie whose concept was done many times before? Those questions were the reason I had to see this movie and the answer is...the execution. The movie's originality is in its realism of the concept. What if a situation like this REALLY happened. How would astronauts on the ISS in space deal with it. With the odds against them like a confined space, no weapons and most importantly NO Gravity. And there my friends is the catch. If I were reading the script and I discovered that this creature can maneuver in zero G's like a fish in water then yes I would be hooked. And It doesn't hurt that you have good actors to carry you along. You feel their desperation and their struggle and pain. And with clever direction from Danial Espinosa, you get a good movie that is executed well. No it's not a new concept, and yes we have seen this story before but when you execute it well it becomes original. "POSSIBLE SPOILER" Oh, and the alien itself was original too. This monster is pretty not menacing and ugly but approachable. Like a small cute dog you want to pet but look out, it bites...hard. The creature was made for a zero g environment which puts the victims at a disadvantage. They can't run down corridors like in Alien they have to float and push...slowly. Chills yet? All in all, this is a good movie and the ending does lead itself to possibly have a squeal but I hope it doesn't because it won't capture the magic this film did with the environment it created. At times this movie reminded me of Gravity but with an alien in it. This movie goes on my list as one of the best Alien knock-offs. LIFE is not original but it is executed well.

I enjoyed this movie. It has some great jumpy moments at the beginning to pull you into this movie's orbital trajectory. But to enjoy this movie you do have to suspend your essential disbelief that America and a consortium of other product placement regions, sorry I mean Russia, China and Japan, could spend "well over $200bn" putting a science station in orbit and then man it (or should that be "woman it") with half of a dozen of their most stupid scientists (convincingly played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds and Rebecca Ferguson). ;-) If you can do that, you'll love it and even find some of it funny. And if you've never seen Alien (1979) or Gravity (2013) before you might even find the plot line highly original too. ;-)

LIFE is the latest Hollywood sci-fi horror movie that owes a debt of inspiration to ALIEN. Once again a space crew are exposed to a malignant alien life form, with the twist that this time around the action takes place a lot closer to home - on the International Space Station, orbiting Earth. LIFE tells a familiar story in a familiar way, but I really enjoyed it, and it's one of the few films to actually get my heart going; I experienced genuine fear, for the first time in a long time, in the early sequences in which the alien is trying to escape. I put this down to the sterling job done by director Daniel Espinosa, of EASY MONEY fame. The cast is pretty good for a film like this, with the actors giving subdued performances for the most part. Jake Gyllenhaal echoes NIGHTCRAWLER with his haunted turn while Ryan Reynolds has mercifully little running time. Rebecca Ferguson is okay and a darn sight better than Sandra Bullock was in GRAVITY. Best of the lot is the great former Japanese action star Hiroyuki Sanada, once again acting the socks off everybody else in support. The film is sufficiently gruesome in the horror stakes, and the CGI effects are up to the job too. It's different enough from ALIEN to enjoy, and the suspense is consistent. Add in a good twist ending and you have a thoroughly enjoyable movie.

A crew of astronauts faces a first-encounter scenario with a hostile alien life-form, which picks them off one by one. Sounds familiar? Let's get right to it: it's impossible to discuss this without mentioning Alien (so SPOILERS for that film as well), because Daniel Espinosa' movie borrows so heavily from Ridley Scott's classic that it becomes the proverbial elephant (er, xenomorph?) in the room. Alien is a milestone of horror/science-fiction where every element – Scott's elegant direction, O'Bannon's taut script, solid performances, phenomenal creature and set design – worked together to create a masterpiece of cinematic dread. It may not be a pleasant watching experience – it's an oppressive, nightmarish film, unlike James Cameron less disturbing but breezier sequel – but it's up there in any serious Top 100 movie list. How does Life fare against the 1979 titan? Well, Alien is obviously light years above it, but Life does not embarrass itself either. It's better than Prometheus, which was much more ambitious and therefore more awkward in its failure. Life is... passable. The first forty minutes or so are actually excellent, with an effective build-up of tension as the scientists retrieve samples from Mars' soil and study a fast-growing organism (which they name "Calvin") found in it. Direction, production values, performances and characterization are all above adequate; incidentally, Ariyon Bakare's paraplegic biologist, who sees all his dreams come true before they blow up in his face, would have been a more interesting main character. Also, I would pay money to listen to Rebecca Ferguson read aloud even a History of Fourteenth Century Clavichords. Then the movie degenerates to an extent. Why is that? Again, Alien is the key to understand this. Less is more. We see way too much of starfish/octopus-like Calvin once its killing spree begins. When re-watching Alien, it's striking how little we see of the Xenomorph after the chest-bursting scene. I don't think its various on-screen appearances last more than a minute until the climax, and, with one exception and a deleted scene, we never see what he does to its victims. In Life, Calvin keeps bouncing around like an evil CGI rubber ball, dispatching characters in gruesome detail (also, it grows a cobra-like mug to grin at its preys, which was a really silly design choice). As a result, it's far less creepy. Also less creepy is the location, although that was an inevitable problem once you go for the modern day setting, with a realistically cramped space station. Alien's colossal Nostromo was a haunted house in space, with plenty of dark rooms to explore and darker corridors for the creature to crawl in. But the real horror of Alien was how it implied a Lovecraftian universe full of mysterious threats well beyond mankind's understanding (that was before Prometheus came out and started putting tags on them, thanks a lot). Here everything is neatly explained and spelled out. That's the organism which caused mass extinction on Mars, a nasty bugger which eats everything, is nearly invulnerable and as smart as the plot needs it to be. Speaking of that, it's amusing in a meta kind of way how Life follows the tone of Alien's original ending (when the script was still called Star Beast), complete with Diabolus Ex Machina. Watching Life, it's clear the choice to tone down the Xenomorph's powers at the end of Alien was a smart one - unlike Calvin here, who instantly knows how every piece of machinery works, much like the genius sharks in Deep Blue Sea. It may be intelligent, but intelligence doesn't work like that; a space octopus which two hours ago was no bigger than an Escherichia Coli cannot simply glance at the cockpit of a spaceship and know how to pilot it, sorry. While I can appreciate a dark twist as much as any horror fan, I appreciate it more when it feels a little less contrived and smugly "wah-wah!" - something more creepily ambiguous, like in Carpenter's The Thing, which remains the gold standard for this kind of endings. 6,5/10

Life was a solid horror/alien movie with a wonderful cast and well shot visuals. It is not a masterpiece especially considering the genre's many great entries, including the alien which seemed to be something that this film has modelled after. I liked how this film in contrast to Alien seemed very plausible and realistic, focusing on the 'science' part of sci-fi. The mission in search of extra terrestrial living organisms is a very interesting topic and this film made the possibilities of this seem so much more plausible. At the same time Life also brings up an interesting idea of how little we know about the universe that we live in and how inexperienced we are. How alien life form could be so different to our expectations and hence the debate of whether we should explore and the consequences of human curiosity. It carried a good amount of intensity and suspense and was gory and terrifying at times.The performances were quite good, the cast is pretty great though so there was no surprise there but it did fall flat in writing though, not that it was poor but it's a very straight forwards and rather clichéd trope that we've seen many times even though it was indeed well done.

I've seen a loooot of bad reviews for this movie, the primary reason for the hate being that the plot was 'unrealistic' or 'implausible'........ uhm.........what the f**k, haters? If you want to watch a sci-fi alien monster movie that's 'realistic', go watch some NASA documentaries, don't come to the cinemas. Another reason for all the bad reviews seems to be that it 'tries to imitate Alien but fails'. Well, f**k, then no one else should ever try to make another space monster movie ever! Lets just keep watching the 1979 'Alien' again and again........seriously..... So, why do i think this movie is so much better than all the negative press it is getting ? Well for a change it's set on the ISS, not a fictional planet or space-ship floating around 100s of light-years away.....(implausible they say). It has people who seem to be astronauts, dealing with a growing life form, rather than space heroes shooting space guns at space monsters (unrealistic, they say). The horror, suspense and intrigue (which critics say stems for unrealistic situations) is in my opinion a near-perfect example of Murphy's law in action. Then, the acting (another prickly point for the critics) is actually very well done given the situations the characters find themselves in. Reynolds, Gylenhaal & Ferguson all deliver solid performances in an era where all the 'acting' talent is reserved for sentimental Oscar-bait movies. As for the plot? strong, fast-paced yet coherent enough for us uninitiated every-day astronauts. And a SOLID twist at the very end. So, all-in-all, ignore the hate and give this movie a try \m/

The internet is a funny place... it seems to be filled with people who have graduated with 5 Ph.Ds. and clearly seem to be smarter than everybody else (thousands of astronauts and astrophysicists on IMDb apparently). One star rating? Come on... Clearly, you haven't watched enough films to know decent from terrible. I watched this film without having heard of it (no trailers, spoilers or anything). I'm a sci-fi fan and thought this was a good watch. I found the characters to lack depth and their actions were questionable at times but the plot was believable and the acting decent. Special effects were good and made the movie believable in my opinion. The movie was well shot and I thought the scenes with the creature were pretty cool. I don't get how people even compare this movie to "Aliens"; it's nothing alike. Overall, I thought it was pretty good.

This is a Sci-fi suspense horror film, staring an A-list cast. The crew are isolated in a space-station, which feels incredibly claustrophobic. The mission is to analyse some soil samples from Mars and in the process the crew discover a dangerous 'octopusy' like alien life-form. The Alien (they name 'Calvin') grows very quickly and slowly picks off the crew in it's attempts to survive. The alien is fairly scary but I don't think will measure up to some other film monsters, and I'm not sure if I'm ever going to enjoy calamari again. The plot is heavily inspired by the original Ridley Scott 'Alien' film, while the very heavy CGI opening scenes are heavily inspired by 'Gravity'. The zero gravity 'floaty' scenes are well filmed and very effective. The sound-track is very atmospheric but is 'bigger' than the film. In summary, the film is watch-able but there is a very predictable twist at the end and the film is ultimately forgettable in favour of better examples.

I was highly annoyed by the unprofessional and error-prone behaviour of the movie characters. Throughout the movie, you will ask yourself: How can he be so stupid? Why is she not doing the obvious? Why are the astronauts emphasising proper procedures, then five seconds later breaking their own rules? How come a former soldier is breaking the chain of command? There is nothing realistic about the behaviour of these characters. In the end, I just hated them. I do not believe that there is a demographic that likes movies like this. Either the script was written by an incompetent author, or the directors are ignorant of what makes a good movie.

First of all, this was a great movie, maybe partially because i am a huge fan of this sci-fi/Thriller/Horror genre, movies like Alien, Event Horizon and Sunshine are awesome. It did however have 3 major flaws 1.The crew seem to have no training in how to handle a security breach, they seem to just be normal people in space, acting on emotions rather than rational thought, this continues throughout the movie. 2. No matter how tough an alien life form could be from evolving on Mars, where our best Theory on Mars history is that Mars used to be allot more habitable, but slowly or maybe even rapidly declined into it current state, there is no way it would so easily be able to manage space, it is -171c and depressurised, if exposed to space for that long, it would at least just freeze solid. 3. The whole ending is made to make room for a sequel, but to what use ? the life form is not only massively overpowered and much more tough and smart than the aliens in Alien form 1979, it is an organism consisting of a complex system between trillions of independent cells, meaning every single cell can become a new big alien. Hence once they crash on earth, given how fast we saw it grow and just absorb other lifeforms and manage to survive extreme conditions, it merely needs to drop itself into the ocean, fall apart and within a day, you would have trillions of them running around after they have all grown up. A Sequel would just need to last 5 min, and its game over.

Just got back from seeing this and I have to say that I thought it was a really good film. I see that RT only has it at 65% and it's being made out to be a cheap Alien clone but I think that is doing it a dis-service. I felt it was intelligently made, set characters and situations well and created a palpable sense of tension. Criticism that it's a blatant re-run of Alien are unjustified. Granted, it's about an alien life form in space but that to me is where the similarity ends. Alien isn't the only scary film set in space that is allowed to be made and if Prometheus is anything to go by, Ridley has no right to be the only person allowed to make sci-fi horror films. It captured well the excitement of discovery, the wonder of space and the precariousness of facing any problems up there. The effects were good, you could see what was going on, there was unease and dread and it kept me thoroughly absorbed and entertained. I don't want to elaborate anymore for fear of giving away spoilers but if you like a bit of tension with your sci-fi, it's worth checking out. Try to avoid the critic reviews if you can as I think going in a little blind will help your enjoyment.