Life

This sucked.

Director: Daniel Espinosa
Writers: Rhett Reese
                Paul Wernick

I have plenty of issues with this. It started off very promising, with the scientists looking at how life can grow and it looked beautiful and almost seemed like they were going to look at the idea of how life on another planet can possibly be beautiful. It looked like it could be smart like it could have some great characters that you want to see get out of this alive if anything went wrong. Turns out that's not what we get. We get a very rushed, predictable, boring rip-off of Alien with no character development and an audience hoping the threatening alien comes to Earth and wipes us all out because the human species fucking suck. Hard.

This is a very cut and paste story. Humans are in space looking for signs of life beyond Earth, humans discover proof and make this proof angry forcing it to go on a rampage. I really couldn't believe how predictable this was, even the ending which I guess was supposed to be a "twist" ending, it plays out like that so I guess that was the intention. Every single thing is just predictable from the very beginning and at this point, where technology and filmmaking has advanced so much from where it started, it's insulting to a film goer for your product to be both predictable and boring. Predictability is fine as long you have interesting characters or an interesting premise or something but...no.

I really don't remember who any of the characters were in this. I remember a Japanese guy who you know what's coming to him because he becomes a father while up in space. No spoilers but...you know what happens to him. I remember Jake Gyllenhaal being up there for ages because he has a hatred of the human species and what we do to each other, I don't blame him, to be honest. If I could escape everyone up in space I'd do it too. Then there's Ryan Reynolds, you know exactly what's going to happen to him because of the line Quote: "I miss my fuckin' dog." Again, no spoiler but considering he says that...you know what's going on. There was a British woman, can't remember her character's name so I'm not sure who she is, and the same for the Russian woman too. Impactful and memorable. Finally, there's Ariyon Bakare. He plays a man who is wheelchair bound on Earth and is pretty much the most responsible for this alien species (Calvin) becoming a dick in the name of self-preservation. I will say, however, it looks like the actors are trying some of the time they're on screen. Some of the time. The rest it just kinda looks like they're just waiting for this to be over so they can get paid.

Speaking of waiting for this to be over, that was a pretty good thing about this film. There was no waiting for it to be over. The film knows it's a paint by numbers boring film that's over pretty much as soon as it starts. It's like the third Jurassic Park movie in that sense. Just get people in there, have them encounter the danger, and end it. Nice and quick.

Another positive thing was the alien itself, Calvin. This thing is my absolute favourite thing in the entire movie. It's CGI...obviously, but the way they describe this creature. All muscle, all brain and all eyes. Very cool. The design is pretty good for what you get, it's very tentacle-y and in some scenes looks like an octopus and in others looks like he's got slugs for legs but, it's a pretty cool design. The way this thing kills is also pretty good. Kind of reminiscent of the chest burst scene in Alien but...not chest burst-y. In fact, you don't see the exact method this thing kills. It's just in and out fairly quickly, pretty graphically too but it's great. Before I forget, Calvin kills a rat. I didn't watch that part because I hate looking at animals that get killed on screen. I saw people's reaction to it and that wasn't pleasant. If you go see this and don't like looking at animals getting killed on screen for the purpose of demonstrating another creature's power.

That's it, this was crap but if you enjoy generic alien kills humans even though humans were dicks to the alien stories then there's a strong chance you'll enjoy this. If you enjoy just sitting back and not being challenged by what you're watching, you're gonna like this. If you want something to challenge you and give you a better experience then I wouldn't bother seeing it.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying tickets to see the film and buy the DVD or Bluray when the time comes.