Low ‘Life’
‘Alien’ knockoff reaches for the obvious instead of the stars
Terribly titled, well cast and as unsparing as it is unoriginal, “Life” is a sci-fi/horror hybrid set in the near future. In scenes reminiscent of the award-winning “Gravity,” one of a team of astronauts on the International Space Station captures a rogue capsule carrying specimens from Mars as it flies by.
The team members are: tall and elegant Commander Ekaterina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya), athletic and compassionate Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson), hotshot engineer Rory “Roy” Adams, (Ryan Reynolds), systems expert and (ruh-roh) new father Sho Murakami (Hiroyuki Sanada), exobiologist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) and creepy Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal in “Nightcrawler” mode).
One of the specimens contains a single-cell organism, and the team is able to revive the cell with a “Frankenstein”-style jolt of electricity (yes, that old nag). The people of the Earth below hold a contest for naming the tiny thing, and a little girl comes up with Calvin.
Before getting much in the way of character development, we learn that crazy-eyed Dr. Jordan holds the record for the most consecutive time in space and has a yo-yo, while Derry, whose withered legs make no difference in zero gravity, has an unhealthy way of playing with his specimens, if not his food. Next thing you know, cute, little Calvin has grown tentacles and gotten bigger. Before you can mutter the words, “It! The Terror from Beyond Space,” Calvin is on the loose on the station. Whose chest is going to burst next?
Complete with an ironic and almost as disgusting shoutout to a famous gross-out scene in “Oldboy,” “Life” is mostly the 90th knockoff of “Alien” (1979). In fact, it is a sort of a knockoff of the original landmark “Alien” if that film had stayed stuck in “face-hugger” mode.
Sweden-born director Daniel Espinosa, whose breakout film was the stylish 2010 crime drama “Snabba Cash” has since made “Safe House,” also with Reynolds, and the inert “Child 44.” “Life,” which was shot at England's historic Shepperton Studios, where everything from “A Clockwork Orange” to, yep, “Alien” was made, is by no means incompetent. But the score by Jon Ekstrand is an assault with horns and sub-woofers, and the screenplay by “Deadpool” writing partners Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is low on wisecracks and just another in a very long line of “Alien” imitators with nothing new or very interesting to add.
Moreover, some things just do not add up. If Calvin can survive long exposure to the temperatures and vacuum of space, how does it make sense to try to kill it by depriving it of oxygen? Ridley Scott's new “Alien” film “Alien: Covenant” arrives in two months. Save your money for that.
(“Life” contains extreme, graphic violence and profanity.)