Life

In year when Ridley Scott released another Alien movie, to which the reactions have ranged from "eh it's alright" to vengeful fury, I found it interesting that another movie was actually more reminiscent of the original Alien. Enter, Life an original sci-fi monster movie with a stacked cast including the red hot Ryan Reynolds, some awesome press interviews, and decent reviews. So is it worth a look for sci-fi horror fans? Let's have a look.

An undisclosed time in the future, a probe from Mars is headed towards an international space station that may contain organic material. After some poking and prodding the team celebrates a minor miracle as the single celled organism is revived and given a name: Calvin. But after an accident in their secure facility, it seems clear that Calvin may present more of a risk than the team initially thought...

It's fairly clear from the get-go, that Life is borrowing heavily from the Alien formula with a couple of alterations. As such, your opinion of the film will likely depend on how tolerant you are of "homage" heavy films or the changes to said formula. Keeping that in mind, here's a breakdown of what makes Life a slightly different animal. *some spoilers ahead*

The Cast: Diverse & Just Enough Characterization

Admittedly, a movie like this isn't about delivering a deep character study of team dynamics. But what's there works really well. The team is a diverse collection of men and women with differing goals and skill sets, with just enough info about them to make us care or explain how they behave. There's not necessarily a stand-out, but in a movie where most of the people are cannon fodder, that's ok.

The Monster: Smart & Strong

Calvin might be my favorite thing about this movie. For years we've had aliens that either look like xenomorphs or Lovecraftian creatures and here comes a thing that's just as strong, scary, and deadly that looks like a white blood cell that won't stop growing. It's design also means things like bites and scratches are replaced by envelopment, smashing, or crushing. Likewise, this thing is so smart and thin that is can sneak around circuit boards and disable communication arrays intentionally. 

I was also thrilled that the film didn't bother explaining Calvin's origins. All we know is that it survived on Mars, it's scary good at murder and it wants off the space station. It's truly terrifying.

The Discovery: Intentional But Rational

Another thing I liked is the intent of our crew. Unlike Alien where corporate greed is the real reason for the xenomorph's discovery, this crew is actually looking for life. That said, they're a healthy distrust and rationality to their approach. They don't bring it down to earth because they don't know what the creature is capable of, and once things do go haywire their singular goal isn't survival, it's keeping it away from the Earth's surface. And yes people here make a bad decision here or there, but overall they behave in semi-realistic ways to the task they've been given.

The Scares: Some Wasted Potential

As scary as the film's premise is, the film strains to create unique scary sequences. There's the first death, the breakout, and a harrowing scene during a spacewalk, but a lot of this movie is people looking at panels hoping for the best. There's a fair amount of scares, but I'd certainly prefer more out of a quality monster.

Verdict: Agreeable for fans of sci-fi horror

While perhaps not as scary or unique as some might prefer, Life's talented cast and unique monster are enough to garner a recommendation. Check it out!