Life

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. (06/15/2017)

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. (03/30/2017)

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. (08/25/2017)

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. (12/08/2017)

As an appetizer before the upcoming Alien flick, it was solid. What are we going to say, sci-fi horror movies are like saffron and with a 60 million budget and such a stellar cast, even more so. There's not much attention paid to the story here, after the opening 20 minutes the film deals out its cards clearly and it's a cosmic whodunit with a very creative creature feature that is definitely engaging. The atmosphere thickens decently, there's no shortage of tension, the music builds wonderfully and the final shot is bound to please any fan who grew up on horror films. I'm satisfied, well made entertainment. 75% (03/29/2017)