L I F E  3.0***

 ‘’Life’ tells the story of a crew of astronauts on an international space station circling the Earth. They discover a new life form from Mars brought back by an unmanned space explorer. As the crew begins to examine the new life form, it begins to grow and become intelligent. It then escapes from the lab and starts taking out the crew members.  As the alien form makes its way through the group, the space team desperately tries to kill the alien  and above all prevent it from getting to Earth. The film is a heart pounding sci-fi horror film much in the same vein of Ridley Scott's Alien. While many sci-fi films since Alien have tried to imitate it, “Life” succeeds by having an apparently indestructible alien in the claustrophobic environment of the space station. There are some times when you think the film will take a right, but instead it takes a hard, very surprising left. These twists keep you on your toes and never let you relax  which is a huge compliment for a sci-fi horror film.

Starring an all-star cast of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, and Rebecca Ferguson, the film's cast adds to the surprising nature of the story. The moments that end up being the biggest in the film come from the surprising lengths these characters will go in order to survive and keep the alien from getting to Earth. This makes for a very layered and very interesting take on something that could have easily been a CGI spectacle with no heart and very little brain. The decisions that these characters make are real decisions.  the weight of which echoes and reverberates throughout the entire film.  

This movie’s alien is a super intelligent, highly evolved form of bacteria.  Actual physics and biology was used to create the alien form. . It wasn't just some creature out of the mind of a screenwriter or CGI nerd.  Also, they used an actual space station, that is real and does exist. . This movie is about what could actually happen if we’re not super careful as we go about our exploration of space. This is something that we should actually be worried about. “Life” is  ground breaking in its concept and execution. It does not cop out by using theoretical science and fictional equipment. “Life” uses all actual equipment, actual science, and actual crew reactions, although, I would have sacrificed the first guy who became infected, immediately and booted the then immature  alien out of the space station at the first sign of an issue. But the curiosity of a huge scientific discovery blinded the crew to the truly deadly nature of the alien..

Rated R for language throughout, some sci-fi violence and terror.

Clark