Review of Life (2017) by Brandon W — 21 Jun 2017

Life is directed by Daniel Espinosa, and it stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, and Hiroyuki Sanada in a science fiction horror film about a group of people in the International Space Station that has caught a probe from Mars that contains an extraterrestrial life, and they have to study it to see whether it's friendly or not.

I was curious to see this for the fact that this is written by the guys who wrote Deadpool and Zombieland since this is their first horror film, and that it's interesting to see the premise being what would happen if we did find extraterrestrial life from space, despite the fact that it's very similar to the Alien films.

So when my good friend rented it and we watched it, Life is way better than it should've been as a sort of Alien rip-off. The cast in this is fantastic as they are very likable, and the movie actually spends time on half of the crew members in the space station.

The writing by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is very witty when it comes to Ryan Reynolds's character, which is a bit of a coincidence since he's in Deadpool, which is written by the same guys, and when it doesn't show him in the film, it still was well-written enough that I was worried about the characters, although some of the others that weren't developed much felt expendable.

The effects look really good, especially the design of the alien that while isn't as scary as the alien design as the Xenomorph from the Alien films, but it still looks a bit creepy in that it looks cute, but it's the point of the creature since it gets bigger and more creepy when the movie progresses.

The kills in this are surprisingly inventive and brutal to watch, and it gets very suspenseful and tense that I really wanted the characters to survive. Another issue that I do have with it is that there are some dumb decisions that the characters make that it seem typical for a horror film, but luckily those were the only flaws that I can think of as Life is sadly a much better Alien film than Alien: Covenant.