Less.
Lifeless would be a more accurate title.
Even with Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds attached as astronauts in distress, this one never reaches orbit, and instead achieves only a template trajectory.
Six crew members on the International Space Station discover a single-cell organism among recent samples from Mars. What starts out as a wondrous moment, the meeting of intelligent life forms, quickly becomes another bug hunt, when everyone freaks out.
The astronauts get popped off one by one, as the rapidly adaptable alien known as Calvin, decides the crew is expendable.
The creature effects are decent, giving Calvin a gliding tadpole-starfish-octopoid fluidity through the thin atmosphere as it chases down its prey.
Unfortunately, it’s not frightening, so there’s no tension at play, even as the two survivors race for the escape pods on a space station that’s set for self destruction.
As silver linings go, Life is at least good to look at. The modeling and effects techs do a bang-up job. The International Space Station as both a vast and miraculous piece of technology, and a potential tomb that’s getting smaller all the time.
To his credit, director Daniel Espinosa handles the effects deftly, but the script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is a lemon, unfolding in all-too-familiar fashion—with one exception.
The end of Life is not a happy one. Is it worth sitting through the rest for a mighty grim payoff?
Naw.
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