Mr. Movie review: ‘Life’ has great effects, but boring, predictable story
Life — ironically — has none. It’s the typical, dangerous alien terrorizing humans in space horror movie. In this case, a satellite carrying soil samples from Mars delivers an alien to the International Space Station. The crew analyzes the soil and finds a one-cell organism that responds to more oxygen and warmer temperatures.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds are the stars. They’re wasted in this total waste of time.
Named Calvin by kids at a school on Earth, the creature is cute and — as it grows — responds to fingers poking at it and seems curious about its environment. Then it goes into hibernation. It’s an unacceptable state to one of the station’s scientists, who wakes Calvin up.
Big mistake.
Calvin — like many humans you and I know — is kind of crabby when awoken from a deep sleep. He attacks the guy, mangles his hand, uses the tool that woke him up to escape his enclosure. By now ,Calvin looks like an Octopus. Attempts to kill him fail and make Calvin madder.
At that point, the lifeless Life evolves into a chase in space movie. The characters die in their order of importance to the plot.
Using techniques pioneered by Alfonso Cuaron in Gravity, director Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) packs this flick with effects that make you believe his characters really are in the low gravity of the space station. But so what? Been there. Done that.
I had two choices for a review this week. Power Rangers — the live action flick based on the 1990s kiddie cartoon the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers — or this one. Halfway through Life, and I’m wondering if I picked the wrong movie.
Sadly, the writers — Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who penned the wonderful flicks Deadpool and Zombieland — and Espinosa will probably give us a sequel with even less life than this predictable, boring but blessedly short sci-fi flick.
Life
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sandada, Olga Dihovichnaya, Ariyon Bakare
Mr. Movie rating: 2 stars
Rated R for gore, violence and language. It’s playing at the AMC Kennewick 12, the Fairchild Pasco and Queensgate 12s, and Walla Walla Grand Cinemas.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen.
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it’s your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on DVD.
2 stars to 1 star: Don’t bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself.
This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie review: ‘Life’ has great effects, but boring, predictable story."