Is it weird to call a movie painfully okay?
Life (2017) is director Daniel Espinosa's (Safe House, Child 44) foray into the space horror genre which can best be described as an adequate disappointment. Yes, that makes sense, let me explain.
I can say that without any doubt that you have seen this movie before. Oh, probably not Life (2017), but I mean the numerous other films that it is either homaging or just plain ripping off. The primary film is, of course, Ridley Scott's class film Alien with a sprinkling of Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity in there too. There's also a lot of elements from the criminally underappreciated Danny Boyle meditative space thriller Sunshine (2007), and I'm not just talking about the fact that Hiroyuki Sanada is somehow in both.
It's sometime in the near future and a probe from Mars is returning home with soil samples that contain micro-organisms which are the first sign of life outside of Earth. Our intrepid crew - includes Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson - all race to catch this craft aboard the International Space Station. It's confusing what's going on as we've never been introduced to any of these characters, and this long tracking shot of events does both intrigue and befuddle me as no other shot afterwards ever does this (yay Gravity I guess). Things go as well as can be and surely enough they bring a single-cell Martian life form back from the dead. It's an interesting few moments - a chance to reflect on what pure discovery is, and one about the very nature of life itself. When the film does slow down it does so in smart, sometimes provocative ways.
This being a monster movie, you know that Calvin will, of course, not remain the most friendly of creatures. When the lead scientist makes one small error and Calvin returns to sleep, the trained experts aboard the ISS come up with a solution: electrocute it with a handheld cattle-prod. I'm sure you're as shocked as I am that this was, perhaps, not the best of ideas.
Calvin wakes up, gets defensive, and attacks the scientist via the most aggressive handshake I've seen since the classic film Hot Shots. It gets out because this "quarantine lab" has a vent system that's hooked up to the rest of the station, then proceeds to start munching on whatever food it can find and grows up to the size of an octopus. Seriously, this station's idea of "quarantine" is a single door and a glass box with rubber gloves.
What follows is a bog-standard Alien knock-off, complete with things being shoved down throats and a "no matter what, we can't let this thing get to Earth" moment. As they hunt Calvin it's clear that these characters are ill-prepared and inept to the point of farce. They try to burn it, suffocate it, blast it into space, all with disastrous results for them, including screwing up the ISS's orbit and making it fall towards Earth - thus potentially threatening all of mankind. I get that the film wanted stakes higher than just the safety of the crew, but could you at least somehow have Calvin be the instrument of the impending doom, not the characters doing it themselves?
In the end, of course, when it's down to our final characters, Life (2017) presents us with exactly what everyone in the audience saw telegraphed. It oddly didn't rip off Alien's end - instead going for a more The Outer Limits finale. After the final shot fades away and the credits begin, it's almost gleeful in the way it cuts to one of the most inappropriate end credit songs I've ever heard - almost the only original thought the movie had. Life (2017) may finally have ended, but if a film leaves zero impact, did it really happen?
You notice how I didn't bother to name the characters? Yeah, that's for a reason. The crew aren't really made up of characters, more like they're made up of three actors you recognize, and three that are 100% part of the dinner menu. We know their profession - with Rebecca Ferguson reminding us she's a quarantine officer every chance she can - but otherwise they're just random people. I do wonder if the first ten minutes of the movie are just missing due to the lack of setup. Heck, a defining trait of one of the characters is that they are paralyzed from the waist down; a revelation made about halfway through the movie which reinforces my belief that scenes are just missing.
That leads me into something else that bugged me throughout my entire time with Life (2017): I just didn't care if our heroes lived or died and felt no fear for their safety. Life (2017) is made up of many scary parts. Space, being trapped in confinement, aliens, imminent death, all of those things are scary. They just don't work here. In Alien we knew who the crew were with their unique looks and personalities; it gave us a long and proper introduction to them and we feared for them as they faced down death-incarnate. Life (2017) never gives us a chance to know who we are supposed to worry about. The creature, too, doesn't really become the thing of nightmares it's supposed to; if the crew never really look terrified of it then why should I?
Remember how I called Life (2017) painfully okay? Yeah, for me this film at times was agonizing because it's just too competent. The film itself, in isolation, is decently acted and paced, and has a few moments that do utilize its setting rather well. Absent other films I would be fine with recommending it as an enjoyable piece of science fiction cinema. In a different universe I'd probably even like Life (2017). The pain comes from knowing that this film exists in the same universe as far superior ones, and no amount of competent filmmaking in Life (2017) will stop me from saying that you should just see Alien instead. This is the rare movie that I'd say would be a better film if it was worse.
If there's a word to describe my feelings sitting through Life (2017) it's this: melancholy. It's one of the most "okay" and least original movies I've ever seen and it doesn't ever try to be anything more. There are some tense scenes, it's relatively well made, and I can't really say I ever got bored by Life (2017), but I just didn't enjoy it as much as the stuff it's blatantly borrowing from. I was just left with the feeling like I should go watch Alien, Gravity, or Sunshine (2007) instead; Life (2017)'s only impact is to remind you of better movies.
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