Life, directed by Daniel Espinosa, whose work consists mostly of star-studded lowbrow action flicks, is not a particularly original or inventive film. And for a movie about intelligent extraterrestrial life, it’s not exactly clever in either its story or the way it presents it. One could say it’s pretty much a direct ripoff of Alien, with some inspiration from Gravity thrown in for good measure. Yet, in spite of all this, I still enjoyed the heck out of it. Pointless trips down memory lane work when they’re well done — and Life, for all its flaws, captures the dreadful essence of pure grotesque horror, complete with a few darn good performances from its cast and some great visuals and sound design. Just don’t think about it too much.
The movie is entirely set within a space station, where six scientists have discovered and are studying a microscopic organism of Martian origins. The life form, though, rapidly evolves into a hostile and intelligent creature whose entire purpose is based around brutal and ruthless murder. Chaos ensues, and the rest of the film is this tentacled sonuvagun inflicting terror upon this helpless group of nerdy scientist as they zero-gravity float their way through an endless series of tight doorways in the fleeting hope of survival. Oh, and then there’s some Alien-esque suffocation and internal organ destruction.
In the early stages of Life — prior to the violent murder stuff — Espinosa and co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick do a solid job of characterizing the scientists and giving them respective personalities and motives. Granted, the movie’s entire draw is to watch them die in some messed up ways, but the filmmakers understand that without some semblance of context and a backstory the more violent parts lose any sense of meaning. The way the life form was initially presented was also extremely well-executed, as the excitement surrounding such a landmark discovery built a palpable sense of anticipation and tension surrounding the film’s inevitable conflict.
As Life moved away from exposition and into bloody suspense and horror, the film somewhat disappointedly lost its sense of creativity and interest in the more dramatic elements of its story. After spending the first 40 minutes of the film setting up for an emotional and dramatic payoff, the crew of scientists kind of just became a medium for the audience to watch some gruesome visual horror. Though the one-by-one murder of the crew was truly a joy to watch from a guilty pleasure standpoint, Espinosa and his crew seemed to overlook the ‘survival’ aspect of survival horror. Ellen Ripley in Alien wasn’t just a pretty face running through tight spaces to avoid a terrifying extraterrestrial insect monster — she had to use her critical-thinking skills to ensure her own survival. Though the movie added an aspect of strategy in its last twenty minutes, it was after watching these supposed geniuses run around pretty much helplessly for an hour or so.
Though it pretty much devolved into a B-movie in its second half, Life nonetheless remained an incredibly entertaining experience, largely due to its technical successes. Espinosa’s direction effectively built suspense and lends the environment a sense of seclusion and claustrophobia, and the sound design and visual brutality make every murder at the hands of this Martian downright horrifying to watch. It makes for some pretty gosh darn intense viewing.
Anyway, I liked Life a lot in spite of its lowbrow tendencies, and if you haven’t picked up on that yet you’re probably not too astute. Now get off my web page, you chumps.
Three and one-half stars (out of five).
