Life movie review

Here's what you need to know; scientists aboard the International Space Station make a discovery that could change humanity's understanding of life while studying Martian soil samples, a tiny little alien with the cutest name; Calvin. Calvin however isn't as cute as he sounds, as the alien rapidly grows and evolves, and soon manages to escape containment aboard the station, and start gruesomely killing the scientists. Realising the threat Calvin poses to human life, the surviving scientists make it their mission to ensure that it never makes it back to Earth.
This film had some interesting trailers, it struck me as a weird blend of Gravity, Alien, and The Thing, all three of those films being great, that sounds like a good mix. Keeping my mouth shut for once, we went into Life effectively blind, and I at least, and probably my friends too, no longer fancy going to sleep tonight.

I couldn't stop myself from making a reference to War of the Worlds in the opening sequence of this film, as the soil sample came 'across two hundred million miles of void' 'invisibly hurtling towards us' before being intercepted by the ISS in a beautiful to look at long take sequence that introduces the crew. It's not very often that I watch a film that I want to keep close to the chest when writing a review, and I'm not a fan of writing such reviews generally, since they're never long, and I like to talk about what I like in the film. Life is one of those films however, having watched the trailer again after seeing the film, I came to admire how well done the trailers are, while they give away too much in my opinion, they barely show Calvin, which is very smart. However if you haven't seen the trailer, I insist you don't, knowing nothing about Life before going in only makes it better. What I can say is that I like how contained this film is, the entire film's runtime is aboard the ISS, and the film effectively has only a handful of characters in total; the scientists, and Calvin. In that sense it's very much like two of the films I mentioned previously; The Thing, which isolates its heroes in a remote, snow covered corner of the world, and Gravity, which isolates Sandra Bullock in orbit amidst a debris storm. Like those two films, this film feeds off of that intense feeling of isolation, the feeling of being literally hundreds of miles from the nearest human, and having no chance of calling for help, add to that the disorientation and claustrophobia that comes naturally with the ISS in this film, and you get a surprisingly creepy setting that's perfect for this kind of gory, suspenseful horror. The film opens in a beautifully foreboding manner, but then, nicely, refrains from the horror elements for a bit, giving time to get to know the crew before Calvin inevitably starts picking them off. The crew in this film is surprisingly likable, and it makes each demise even harder to look at. That's something I loved and also simultaneously hated about Life, it's fucked up, the deaths are more often than not extremely gruesome and or unpleasant, and while you know they're coming, you don't really know in what order, which adds to that sweet suspense, as does the blood, and flesh, and coolant, fucking hell. That's another thing I love and hate about Life, it's intense; from the minute things get real, this film is edge of your seat tense, as, kind of like another movie alien I know, Calvin scuttles silently and invisibly about the station, appearing every now and again to make the squeamish heave. Though the film does lose a bit of that tension towards the end, it's definitely still there, and I must admit, twice at least during the film, I found myself biting the corner of my phone, must admit, I've never done that before, while one of my friends admitted to covering his eyes at one point, which I completely understand, because even I was pretty freaked out by that shit. On a technical level, this film is also marvellous, Calvin at times can look at bit off, but all the space stuff is Gravity level good, I said in Beauty and the Beast that it was never distracting, Beauty and the Beast was more distracting than this, it was wonderful stuff, unfortunately, those poor people. Quickly wrapping this review up, as the film came to a close, and I began to collect my thoughts, something happens, no specifics, of course, but the note this film ends on is so massively fucked up that I don't think I'll sleep tonight, seriously, this film's ending is nightmare fuel, I love it, but good god do I hate it.

And that's the best way I can sum up Life, I love it, and want to watch it again right now, on account of the likable characters, beautiful effects, and strikingly effective tension, but at the same time, I hate it and never want to watch it again, because that tension is so effective, and the deaths are so disturbing and grizzly in their nature, and that ending is downright horrifying, and the perfect way to send off this beautifully disturbing film. This film got under my skin more than any film I've seen in a cinema has, and takes me back to the days of watching horrors with my older brother and not being able to sleep afterwards. That childish terror will stick with me for a while, as will Life, which is absolutely a must watch.