Life

Very nice cinematography evoking Lubezki’s work with space and a nice pace, which, however, hand in hand with the dull character profiles and the bland appearance of the space creature, makes Life a hilarious piece of B-grade sci-fi fantasy. The tension is there, but compared to Scott's claustrophobic Alien, it's just a miniature concoction worthy of oblivion. (08/12/2017)

As an appetizer before the upcoming Alien flick, it was solid. What are we going to say, sci-fi horror movies are like saffron and with a 60 million budget and such a stellar cast, even more so. There's not much attention paid to the story here, after the opening 20 minutes the film deals out its cards clearly and it's a cosmic whodunit with a very creative creature feature that is definitely engaging. The atmosphere thickens decently, there's no shortage of tension, the music builds wonderfully and the final shot is bound to please any fan who grew up on horror films. I'm satisfied, well made entertainment. 75% (29/03/2017)

After Gravity I guessed that somebody would someday film Alien in a similar style… it’s hard not to like Calvin and he’s the main hero of the entire movie and also one of few to behave with any logic. Otherwise this is a classic showcase of bad decisions when the rescuers eliminate themselves first. In acting terms excellent, Reynolds has a few great lines and Gyllenhaal is practically flawless, Rebecca Ferguson awesome. Apart from the lackluster events in the middle, a fascinated study of human mistakes. The ending is great, if only there hadn’t been the spoilers before it came out. Overall quite satisfactory. (25/08/2017)

When I do something, I do it properly, not like Daniel Espinosa. He can indeed direct sci-fi with six heroes that looks magnificent and all those flyovers of the space station are quite impressive, but story-wise, it's a bit lacking. Life seems to balance between two genres. For a while, it plays at serious sci-fi, and a few scenes later, we have a decent horror-trash B-movie. Unfortunately, the film doesn't bring anything surprising or something we haven't seen before in either of these approaches. If Espinosa leaned more into the trashiness or tried to make Life something more thoughtful and steered it in a different direction than B-movie, it would be fine. And it would probably significantly justify the existence of the film itself. As it is, it's a nice-looking sci-fi flick with a chestburster that will only be mentioned in a few years in connection with lists of films that attempted to steal from Alien. (15/05/2017)

In moments when Daniel Espinosa attempts bouncing gravity steps, I mutter to myself something about missed ambitions, but as soon as inspiration from a certain legendary space creature fully manifests, it's a win. The tension doesn't let up even for a moment, Jake Gyllenhaal holds his own even in scenes full of seemingly meaningless dialogue, and even a good few hours after it's over, the thought-provoking conclusion continues to linger, forcing me to contemplate the causes and consequences. (24/03/2017)