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‘Life’
Columbia Pictures/Skydance Productions
By Lucas Allen
Before “Alien: Covenant” has audiences scared out of their seats this summer, we have a new movie this season that can be seen as either a spiritual successor to the original “Alien” or a shameless rip-off. “Life” (not to be confused with the 1999 Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence comedy of the same title) follows the Ridley Scott classic beat for beat about a space team discovering an unknown organism that begins attacking them. This goes back to the most important question — successor or rip-off?
A team of astronauts on board the International Space Station has just recovered a satellite containing samples from Mars for study. Scientists David (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miranda (Rebecca Ferguson) soon discover that an unknown entity ended up there that lead to the announcement of the possibility of life on the red planet to the delight of planet Earth. The specimen named Calvin by Hugh (Ariyon Bakare) is also welcomed by the other astronauts Roy (Ryan Reynolds), Sho (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Katerina (Olga Dihovichnaya).
But the more they study this thing, the more dangerous it becomes, beginning to kill off the passengers one by one. It turns out that Calvin can adapt to the same level of oxygen and heat as regular humans, and can only survive by invading the warmer bodies of its victims. It’s up to the small number of survivors to try to not only get off the station, but also make sure the alien creature doesn’t reach Earth.
It’s easy to see that the movie is an “Alien” clone that tries to recapture the suspense-filled tension and terror that made the original film a classic. If you’ve seen it, you’ve already seen this film. It’s the type of clone that doesn’t try to add anything new to the genre, making it too stale to be seen in theaters. It makes the other clones, like Roger Corman’s “Galaxy of Terror” look like masterpieces.
While it’s certainly well-made, with dark cinematography and a claustrophobic setting, the screenplay has nothing but issues. It doesn’t have enough character development to help us care about the astronauts. Even worse, they keep making dumb decisions to get rid of Calvin that drastically lower the sympathy level. But the biggest punch to the face is its so-called twist ending that is insulting to anyone who just wants a happy ending.
In the case of this kind of film, the acting can be a mixed bag. You have Gyllenhaal, who’s a very good actor, and you have Ferguson, who’s starting to shine fresh off of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.” But for some reason, these actors seem to be told to act on a lower level that proves unnecessary. The only actor giving the movie some levity is Reynolds, who seems to be channeling his “Deadpool” character with his mix of humor and charm.
“Life” has no business existing this way. It’s a Hollywood knock-off that should’ve been straight-to-video instead of being dumped into theaters. A waste of a talented cast because of a lame script with no sense of good direction.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for language throughout, some sci-fi violence and terror)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 2 Stars (Out of Four)
