Macabre...ish Horror Review: Life

Life, 2017/ 1 hr 44 min

The Pilgrim Capsule returns to the space station, damaged, after 8 months with a sample from Mars. Possible evidence of extraterrestrial life, a single cell.

During examination of the specimen, it moves. And later, the cells are getting bigger and cooperating as one creature. So they name it Calvin. It grows and becomes more solid and animated, which of course means now, someone has to touch it.

 It seems nice, until it doesn’t. The scientist in charge of the specimen, is becoming more attached to it and everyone else is becoming concerned. And finally the creature because aggressive, mangling the scientist’s hand and Calvin makes a tool and escapes it’s containment.

It’s growing exponentially, every time it eats, it’s fast, smart and fireproof. Then it goes down Rory’s (Ryan Reynolds) throat. And that’s before it escapes quarantine. This thing doesn’t look like much but it is a beast.

The crew eventually run low on fuel dealing with Calvin and now they only have 2 choices, try to get back to Earth, risk it surviving the journey and wreaking havoc on the population or try to kill it in the space station, in which case it may kill them all but at least Earth will be safe.

All else fails, there is Firewall 3.

This is a scifi thriller and it’s a good story with a very interesting monster. Straight to the point and solid pacing. It is somewhat graphic and there is blood but I wouldn’t call it gruesome. Great cast, Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ariyon Bakare, Hiroyuki Sanada etc. The end is a good set up for a sequel!