Film Review - Life (15)

We're looking at the first proof of life beyond Earth.

First there are science fiction films of striking and groundbreaking originality, say 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then there are those that use their influences to springboard into something else, the way Interstellar does with the aforementioned 2001. Finally there are some that take an idea and - well - do it all over again beat for beat. Life is firmly in the final category. Thankfully for its audience it copies with style.

To be totally fair, the movie takes the plot of Alien and places it for variety's sake within a contemporary Gravity-style setting. The hapless astronauts are based on the International Space Station and can recollect the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster from their youth, so that the threat they encounter seems rather more immediate than one set over a century in our future. 

The plot is simple. Our heroes take on board a delivery of earth from the Mars Rover, which contains a molecular critter that squarely answers David Bowie's famous Mars-related question. Subjected to laboratory tests, the entity (cutely named 'Calvin') starts to grow exponentially, before exhibiting a scary survival reflex. Basically Calvin has no intention of hanging around in its petri dish. All else will be very recognisable to anyone who's seen the classic Ridley Scott horror movie. Space is lonely and the station is claustrophobic, more so once a deadly alien is evading capture and targeting the crew one by one. 

While Life wins no prizes for originality, it does have a few aspects that raise it above the level of slavish duplicate. Its central cast of six (including notables like Jake Gyllenhall and Ryan Reynolds) is tight and strong throughout, selling the gravity of the developing situation with their urgently rattled dialogue. The protagonists' lives and personalities are sketched distinctly enough for us to care about them before the plot starts to turn its screws. And when those screws turn, they do so very tightly indeed, particularly in the film's first half; more than one suspense sequence had me curling up in my seat like a wound spring. 

Yes the set-up has been done before, but its execution finds some very original methods, rooted in recognisably contemporary science, to scare the bejeepers out of the paying customers. And the alien's transformation from something apparently benign to a terrifying threat is pretty satisfying too.

The film does pose a few interesting questions about how humans might or should behave on discovering a new life form and about the fine line between scientific inquiry and folly. Really though it's an excuse for some well-crafted Alien-esque thrills, complete with cold sweat and body horror. Get popcorn in - just be careful not to choke on it when things turn nasty.