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Especially in light of the relatively warm-and-fuzzy space explorations of “Arrival” and “Passengers,” it’s refreshing to see a relatively big studio sci-fi picture in which the final frontier is once again relegated to the status of Ultimate Menace (as opposed to Ultimate Threat). Those who were dissatisfied or disappointed by “Prometheus,” but who are still salivating like Pavlov’s Dog at the prospect of “Alien: Covenant,” may find Daniel Espinosa’s “Life,” a satisfying stopgap measure, a cinematic Epipen of outer-space mayhem to keep the nerves steady until the ostensible Main Event arrives. When it comes to myself, I’ve been savoring such fare since before the release of “Alien,” with films such as “It! The Terror from Beyond Space” and “Planet of the Vampires” among my various cinematic bread and butters when I was a young maladjusted cinephile.
As a result, “Life” impressed me as a step up from “meh,” but it never made me want to jump out of my seat. A claustrophobic, labyrinthine space station serves as the setting for the majority of the film; director Espinosa and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey have a lot of fun in the opening scene, where they “float” the camera along with the station’s crew. The cocky Roy, played by Ryan Reynolds, is the cowboy of the group; he goes on a spacewalk to catch an off-course capsule containing research materials from Mars that has gone astray. David, a cautious medical officer played by a frequently bug-eyed Jake Gyllenhaal, is initially the guy who says things like “We weren’t trained for this,” and “We weren’t prepared.” Miranda, played by Rebecca Ferguson, serves as a den mother to him and the other characters. In the film, science nerd Hugh (Ariyon Bakare) is paralyzed from the waist down and he enjoys zero gravity conditions. He also enjoys the single-cell organism (named “Calvin” by a group of contest-winning schoolchildren back on Earth) that he has extracted from a sample of Martian soil and brought back to Earth for study. Olga Dihovichnaya and Hiroyuki Sanada play two other members of the crew, with the latter returning to space for the first time since Danny Boyle’s 2007 film “Sunshine” in which he appeared.
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The nickname “Dead Meat” from the television show “Hot Shots” or the phrase “Bantha Fodder” from one of the “Star Wars” films may be familiar to you. However. One of the more well-known members of the crew does get to reprise his role as Steven Seagal from the film “Executive Decision,” which is a bit of a spoiler alert. This is due to the fact that Calvin suddenly begins to grow at an alarming rate. At first glance, it appears to be a living version of those icky sticky wall-tumbling toys from your childhood. That’s already a bad situation. Eventually, it develops into a tentacled cross between a mutant lotus and an irritated cobra, which is a terrifying sight to behold. It’s a real pain in the neck. Nonetheless, I quickly realized that it was not H.R. Giger’s work at the time. Alternatively, Giger-league. And if you don’t have that, you’ll always be at a disadvantage in comparison. The rest of the effects and settings are adequate but unexceptional, with the exception of the hiccupped blood bubbles that float around after escaping from Calvin’s victims, which are a nice ghoulish addition.
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There’s also the constant, insistent score by Jon Ekstrand, which bears down on the audience from the very beginning and does little to advance the cause. There are some tense moments—the early scene in which Calvin, as he matures, grabs onto Hugh’s gloved hand and refuses to let go is a good example of this—but the film is also a page-turner. The story’s “beats,” on the other hand, are unavoidably commonplace. A line from “The Thing From Another World” is included in the episode, in which an ill-advised character muses on Calvin’s scientific awesomeness. Or, in the case of the screenwriters, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, there are only so many creative possibilities with a homicidal space creature and a manned spaceship to work with.
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That the film takes a brief detour for character development just as the action should be accelerating toward its conclusion doesn’t help. A children’s book that makes a Chekhovian appearance in the “first act” is the key to surviving the final act, and I didn’t buy it because I didn’t think it was necessary. What the filmmakers fail to recognize is that when you attempt to infuse overtly cerebral elements into ruthless B-movie scenarios, you end up making your final product even dumber than the films you believe you are transcending. When it comes to the punchline, “Life” gives us something we’ve never heard before: a deliberately sour one. But then it goes and punches up an old 1970s hit that you’ve probably heard 100 times before in a million better cinematic contexts. And that’s what “Life” is all about.
For more personality quizzes check this: Underworld Blood Wars Quiz.
