Life

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)

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. (30/03/2017)

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)

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)

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)