Review of Life (2017) by Skulb — 13 Jun 2017

A pretty good movie, although a bit cheesy. Still, it's about ten times better than Gravity was, and a little similar, so I have to up the score just based on that. I felt very cheated by that movie, and Life makes up for it at least a little bit.

Life is a decent sci-fi realism movie about something that is possible, if not very probable. As always, it is not too realistic at times though. An escape capsule with directional thrusters only is somehow supposed to generate enough thrust to reach escape velocity. Just all sorts of no on that from anyone who knows the first thing about orbital navigation. You would need a big burst lasting a few minutes to do this. Still, after Covenant I have lost faith in my Hollywood scientists and barely noticed this and other, slightly less ridiculous things. It is also the only thing that is completely ludicrous from a scientific standpoint, so I'll give it a pass.

But Life is a pretty awesome horror story anyway, in the same mold as the inevitable Alien. It isn't as good as Alien, but it might have been with a little more thought put into the characters and their behavior and dialog. For example, why do ALL the characters have to have the same sappy reaction to a crew member dying? Can't one of them at least show some, I don't know, rage? Confusion? Resolve in a crisis? No, no. They all have to cry like girls because that's just how astronauts are; a very emotional group of people there. And why do they read children's books in the middle of an emergency? What am I watching here?

Anyway, and despite this awful and unrealistic sentimentality, the ending is just proper B-movie "surprise" cheese, and sort of rights the ship before you leave. Although at this point in the story they had the choice between two cliches that would both have been just as bad in different ways. I for one prefer the ending they chose, even if it is a bit worn by now.

Watch this instead of the awful Covenant. And if an occasion arises for any reason to choose it before Gravity and The Martian, go see Life instead.