Life

An average sci-fi flick with slightly bad film effects. I am mentioning the effects on purpose, because this film is trying to copy the movie Gravity but you can clearly see that it can’t match its quality. On the other hand, the crew is great and all the actors are extraordinary and definitely won’t disappoint you. And the story? It couldn’t be simpler. It is a classic horror storyline where everybody dies in the end. (18/12/2017)

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)

A mix of Gravity and Alien, intended to be dominated by man-eating plankton. There can't be much talk about originality, because the creators have obviously had a look at older pieces as well as the new, modern Gravity. The space walks and the destruction of the station are basically indistinguishable from Cuaron's opus (so cool), while the case after the module and the motion sensors look like right out of Alien. And of course there must be a racially and nationally diverse squad of astronauts (gradually dying) and at least twice in the film it must be mentioned that developed countries like Russia, USA, China are involved – exactly in that order! The ending is gratifying but not surprising. Just like Rebecca Ferguson. It’s a thematically heavy sci-fi flick that turns into light entertainment for any given evening. (15/06/2017)

Though it has a nice ending, Life is otherwise just a well-crafted yet routine genre movie that was born out of the possibility to use the audiovisual trends from Gravity. You won’t be bored, as the tension works and the cast is pleasant to look at, but the story is clichéd and the occasional lapses in logic and at least two poorly edited scenes drag the film down to the level of forgettable average. (31/03/2017)

The inspiration (and maybe even a slight rip-off) of Aliens and Gravity is unmistakable, and even though Life doesn't reach the quality of either of the aforementioned films, it's still a solidly suspenseful hundred minutes, during which I was really rooting hard for the mostly (with one exception) likeable cast as they battled the supremely intelligent and extremely dangerous "alien". Maybe I would have shortened the reflections on life a bit and added more nerve-wracking scenes, but I still sat glued to my seat. And I definitely have to commend the ending, which made my racing heart applaud. In short, a film that is technically well done, with good performances and script, and one that is really worth seeing in the cinema. (02/04/2017)