Review: Life

Though its essential premise is Alien meets Gravity, Life is nonetheless a wholly solid and satisfying space thriller. It may have the misfortune of being released a couple of months before Ridley Scott's much-anticipated and presumably far more serious-minded Alien: Covenant, yet it may not be too much of an exaggeration to venture that Life is possibly the more entertaining and re-watchable film.

Life quickly introduces audiences to the six-person ensemble that comprises the Mars Pilgrim 7 mission via an impressive nearly-seven-minute vfx-assisted single take that finds cinematographer Seamus McGarvey's camera hovering above, below, and alongside the crew members as they work together to retrieve a capsule containing samples from Mars. There's wisecracking space cowboy Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds), disciplined microbiologist Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson), disabled lead scientist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare), mission commander Ekaterina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya), system engineer Sho Murakami (Hiroyuki Sanada), and crew doctor David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has been in space far longer than anyone should be and would rather not return to Earth.

Capsule retrieved, Hugh gets to work testing the sample of a single-celled life form, which stirs to life once Hugh gives it glycerin. Soon the life form, now dubbed "Calvin," begins to multiply and exhibit impressive characteristics - every cell has muscular, neural and photoreceptive properties. As Miranda succinctly observes, Calvin is "all muscle, all brain and all eye," which makes him a formidable and nearly unstoppable enemy once a mishap results in Calvin escaping his confines and claiming his first victim. The remaining members must figure out a way to capture and destroy Calvin before he gets to them and/or the Pilgrim re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.

Though the ensuing events are predictable, it doesn't take away from the film's white-knuckle, stomach-churning thrills. Director Daniel Espinosa expertly paces the film, building up the suspense, and then ramping up the tension to maximum effect. He and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick devise often inventive ways for characters to meet their demise and, whilst Calvin may not possess the penchant for chest-bursting and blood-splattering that Ridley Scott's alien has, his methods are just as squeamish and strangely poetic. One particularly striking image has one victim floating in the laboratory, globules of blood pooling around him as his figure hovers about like the horribly discarded flesh in Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin.

All of the characters, unlike most films in this genre, are all distinctive and have significant roles to play. They're not immune from making terrible and sometimes stupid decisions, but the inanity is not egregious. Life doesn't get too philosophical - it knows what its here to do and it does its job extremely well - yet it also demonstrates that, whether human or alien, the need to survive is what drives us all.

Life

Directed by: Daniel Espinosa

Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya