2017, d. Daniel Espinosa - Netflix
I had zero interest in seeing Life in 2017. I was tired of the "trapped in space" genre at that time and wasn't sure if I could tolerate more Ryan Reynolds. Plus, there weren't so many raves and it kind of tanked at the box office.
Two years later I started hearing on podcasts and other sources (like Toast's review) that perhaps Life was underappreciated, that perhaps it was actually a pretty good modern-day Alien riff, that perhaps I might like to check it out if I'm into such things.
It's most definitely a modern-day Alien riff. But it's also a film that is way too pleased with itself and its technical capabilities. It spends its first few minutes following floating people around and then lovingly continues to follow floating people around for the remainder of the film, the camera very in love with the technique they're using to get people floating around. The way the camera tracks the floating people does give us a 360 degrees of workable space, and I'm sure technically there's something very innovative going on here, but as a viewer trying to engage with the characters and story, I found it very, very wanting.
A Mars probe returns to a space station orbiting Earth with samples of the red planet's land. Within the samples, a dormant micro-organism is found. The organism is resuscitated and starts to grow. It begins to exhibit signs of intelligent behaviour, and it's not too long before it becomes aggressive and wants to break free of its captive state and start feeding off the cooling systems and people on the space station. It breaks free and does what it intends to do.
Nicknamed "Calvin", the martian entity is a neat and formidable foe for the crew, who not only have to deal with the immediate personal threat the entity poses but also the residual threat from all the damage it's accidentally causing to the station's systems.
The problem this film has, almost entirely, is in its characters. There are great performers here in Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Ariyon Bakare, but knowing the set-up in advance, none of their characters ever feel like anything more than fodder for the creature to kill. Gyllenhaal's pilot character, most especially, feels like a non-presence in the film. Even though he's part of the main finale sequence, it feels like it could be anyone and it wouldn't make a difference.
It's true, the effects are very well done here, and the film looks pretty great, I just had a real problem connecting with it. I think the film wanted to feel as scientific as possible perhaps in an attempt to ground it for the audience, but in giving us a fantastical killing machine, it actually had latitude to be able to push the limits of its sci-fi setup.
I liked it's dire finale tremendously, but I don't think it did well enough to present a sequel.
Sometimes I wonder if the guy writing the posts under then name Toasty as me, as I found that he liked the movie more than I remember liking it. I am thinking a re-watch is required.
ReplyDeleteLOL. I can actually see why you liked it, there's some good concepts there, and that ending is kind of silly, but in a great way.
DeleteIt was just too showy for me. It's too bright and effects heavy, methinks, for a real horror movie. Not enough mood or atmosphere.