Life: Directed by Daniel Espinosa, Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, and Rebecca Ferguson3/27/2017 Putting extended thought into the film Life (besides being somewhat perfunctory) presents a type of repetition in thought. The words that keep coming up are, “This wouldn’t have worked if ______.” This can almost be applied to the whole movie. The reading of “Goodnight Moon” wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t Jake Gyllenhaal, the film wouldn’t strike so true if the cast wasn’t so chock full of popular actors, that monster wouldn’t have worked if it wasn't alien enough to be feared but familiar enough to be feared even more. The best thing of all is that it entails that Life as a $58 million B-movie actually works for most of its running time. Life is about a group of astronauts (played by an abnormally great cast of Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dihovichnaya, and Ariyon Bakare) up on the International Space Station who at the start of the film catch a satellite, that is traveling back to Earth, that holds the first evidence of sentient life outside of our planet. The creature, starting off as a single cell and then turning into something else (that’s all I’m going to say about that) soon becomes hostile and starts to attack the astronauts, each of them dying in more brutal and creative ways. This is a familiar setup but divorced from the unoriginality of the premise that it has, Life has a lot to offer. The cast is nuanced and diverse, the screenplay is fine if a bit quippy (we are dealing with the Deadpool scribes here) and director Daniel Espinosa and acclaimed cinematographer Seamus McGarvey seem to be snug and comfortable in their roles of playing gorehounds for a day as they throw these astronauts into just about as much trouble as they possibly can be in. The one thing that actually has any chance of being original, the kills are all handled creatively with all of them presenting something that feels either new in design or execution. Take these four words for example: DROWNING IN OPEN SPACE. Can’t say anything else, but if that intrigues you, then this movie is probably right up your alley. For all the artsy and wonderful films out there to see, sometimes just a simple premise pulled off well can be enough. Life is that type of movie. If you think you can sit back and watch a well-orchestrated horror space movie, then see this. If you need a bit more, I recommend you give this a shot. There’s so much stuff in theaters that is devoid of real creativity. Life has so life in it. Life gets an 8 out of 10. Written by Stephen Tronicek
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |