If you’re not afraid of ‘Life’, you’ll soon be terrified of it
THE movie LIFE is an epic, terrifying thriller set in space and most of the action takes place on the Inter national Space Station (ISS).
Here, a six-man crew – all drawn from different nations – are tasked with examining a single-cell life form that has been discovered on Mars and brought back to the ISS by an unmanned space craft, modelled on the Curiosity Rover, the Nasa vehicle that has explored the surface of the red planet.
The star-studded movie cast includes Ryan Reynolds, playing the role of Rory Adams, as a space-walker and engineer. He is joined by Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Dr David Jordan, an American doctor. Rebecca Ferguson is British scientist Dr Miranda North, a specialist in controlled diseases.
Ariyon Bakare is Hugh Derry, a British microbiologist who is the first to examine the “specimen”. Hiroyuki Sanada is Japanese flight engineer Sho Murakami and the team is led by the Russian commander, Ekaterina Golovkina, played by Olga Dihovichnaya.
The very best sci-fi films, says Ryan Reynolds, have the ability to provide thought- provoking entertainment and, at the same time, scare its audience with the unexpected. Life, he promises, will deliver – and then some.
“I think the audience is going to be terrified and intrigued with Life,” he says.
“It’s one thing to make an audience terrified, but you also need to make them really lean into the screen because they are so intrigued by what’s going on – and we get to do both.”
Life was written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and directed by Daniel Espinosa.
The movie was filmed at Shepperton Studios, on the outskirts of London, where production designer Nigel Phelps and his team created detailed replicas of the interiors of the real ISS. As much of the action is set in the ISS, the actors had to mimic the zero gravity that the astronauts who work there experience.
Life was released in cinemas nationwide yesterday.