Reviews Film / Life 2017

It's a bitch

That's basically the idea of the movie. It's a shame too, because this started off really strong.

We're introduced to the ISS and its crew in a really well-done Oner sequence. We're given reasons to like and empathize with everyone or, at least, understand their motivations: Gyllenhaal prefers space to the chaos of earth, Ferguson's concern for safety outweighs her compassion, Reynolds is the Plucky Comic Relief, etc. The film is superbly directed and the whole cast gives it their all. The scene in which the alien gets loose and kills the first member of the crew is frighteningly intense, and the claustrophobia just builds from there. For awhile, the crew's attempts to rid themselves of the unpredictably strong and intelligent alien feels somewhat realistic; how their rationality (and their space station) gradually breaks down as they try to outmaneuver it and each mistake catastrophically leads to the next.

I wanted to enjoy this as both a sci-fi film and a horror movie. That's what it seemed like from the promotional material and, for awhile, that's what it was... until one genre completely overshadows the other. It presents some lofty yet haunting notions about the nature of life and its struggle for survival, that of both humanity and other organisms (namely the film's alien life-form... named Calvin, which I'll admit is one of the freakier aliens I've seen in some time). With those elements in place, therein lies a very interesting conflict, almost like a Battle of Wits between two species. Until the thing eventually grows into a standard horror movie monster and the film devolves into a lame remake of Alien with a Cruel Twist Ending that just feels tacked on. Imagine if, at the end of Alien, after Ripley blows up the Nostromo, blasts the Xenomorph out of the airlock and finally settles into her sleep pod, a facehugger leapt up out of nowhere and latched onto her face. That's the kind of cheap, nihilistic ending this movie has.

At a certain point, most of the supposedly brilliant scientists are holding an Idiot Ball, shooting themselves in the foot as they're unable to think two steps ahead of any decision they make when, logically, they should. And once you stop to really consider Calvin's biology and capabilities, the film ends up feeling ridiculously contrived. So you're left thinking, "Oh there really isn't any meaning to life. The resilience and ingenuity of man is all worthless, and aliens are just cruel monsters. Life's a bitch, and now you're dead."

Also, the trailers for the movie give pretty much the whole plot away.