LIFE (2017) FILM REVIEW

***
15, 110 Mins

For trashy B-Movie fans, ‘Life’ provides passable popcorn entertainment – unless you’ve seen ‘Alien’ or ‘Gravity’.

Set against the backdrop of the International Space Station on a mission to successfully capture a Mars-landing space probe with a newly-found soil sample, ‘Life’ builds it’s premise around a six-human crew consisting of a “pretty boy” medical officer (Jake Gyllenhaal), a frustratingly uptight feminist Quarantine officer (Rebecca Ferguson) and a hunky pilot (Ryan Reynolds) – alongside the film’s token black British scientist (Airyon Bakare), a wise Japanese engineer (Hiroyuki Sanada) and a calculating Russian Commander (Olga Dihovichnaya). Upon the discovery of a bizarrely nicknamed specimen known as “Calvin” which could be mankind’s first major contact with an extra-terrestrial kind, the crew are left fascinated by this squid-like object. That is until such a creature turns out to be a little more snappy than cutesy and the team find themselves quickly diminishing as a predatory being wreaks havoc within the claustrophobic air vents of this lonely voyager.

Yes. You heard it right. Stereotype-breaking characters? A fearsome feminist? A controlling ice queen? Most of all, the underlying, unsettling analogy of a road trip gone bad upon the discovery of a murderous, psychopathic passer-by? I’m talking about ‘Alien’ (1979), right? Nope. I’m referring to ‘Life’ – a pre-packaged, populist crowdpleaser rife with the spirit of Ridley Scott’s seminal “haunted house” space horror combined with the vertigo-testing intensity of Alfonso Cuaron’s deep-space rollercoaster ride ‘Gravity’ (2013). Right from the film’s opening title crawl, one would really have be a cinematic know-nothing not to realise that this is copiously a shameless rip-off of earlier such Sci-Fi efforts. Yet it’s also one that unquestionably shares their unbashed, gloopy air of big-budget B-Movie sensibility. For better or for worse, ‘Life’ does exclusively what it says on the tin.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa (‘Easy Money’ (2010), ‘Safe House’ (2012)) – a perfectly efficient Exploitation Movie helmsman, the film dizzyingly concocts a series of suitably nauseating spacesuit set-pieces that not only demand IMAX viewing, but provide a deliciously delirious sense of space disorientation.

There’s also plenty of sweat-dripping suspense and gut-churning gore to be found in the gradually sustained build-up towards enjoyably nonsensical deaths and a grotesquely slimy creature design enough to make even the most unfazed movie-goer consider puking over the front of their preceding cinema seat!

So few surprises in store, but a solidly flimsy dose of mid-week movie fun for the unsuspecting viewer. Hardcore Sci-Fi geeks craving weightier fare are best off saving their bucks till’ May, however, when ‘Alien: Covenant’ (2017) rolls in!
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