Life

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. (03/04/2017)

Every year, roaring idiots can look forward to about a dozen almost identical infantile colouring books where a masked clown saves the world from a generic villain, but I would love to look forward to having once a decade a film with a similar budget (and cast and craftsmanship) that will be slightly similar to another film made about 40 years ago. Outrageous! Before the screening, I was hoping for a solid eight (like 8/10), in the end Life is an unconvincing seven, but still fine. I loved the design of the main monster and I enjoyed how several scenes play with zero gravity. In the first half at least, the film looked fairly smart, credible and scientific, but when it switches into thoroughbred B-movie chases (at around the second death), it’s no longer so smart, but what the hell. I also felt that the second half jumps awkwardly between action and “broody” sequences, as if stuff had been edited out so the film would not be too long. Personally, I would’ve also toughened up the horror. The expectation that Life could be something more than a snack before the upcoming Alien – Covenant was not fulfilled. But as a snack, it is pretty decent. (24/03/2017)

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. (19/12/2017)

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. (16/05/2017)