Review of Life (2017) by Justin F — 08 Aug 2017

A life form is found on Mars and is cultivated in a lab on board a space station that is in orbit around the earth. It begins to evolve and change in an unexpected way that puts the crew in danger and that's about all I can say really without giving anything away.

I was really surprised and impressed by this film and it has the kind of ending that I tend to love in a story. I've seen many references to Alien and whilst there are some similarities Life has enough in it to differentiate it from that classic. There is also influences from films such as Gravity. I think that one underlying difference is that unlike Alien, the crew's plight is entirely self-inflicted and this changes things for me. Mankind meddles with nature and this is what could happen. Some scenes very brutal and graphic with nice use of effects in zero gravity.

The cast is good and the more I see Jake Gyllenhaal the more I am impressed by him (e.g. Nightcrawler and Southpaw). Also pleased that the captain from the marvellous Sunshine (Hiroyuki Sanada) is in this.