By Emilio Frenk
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Ariyon Bakare, Hiroyuki Sanada and Olga Dihovichnaya.
Rating: Very Good.
Daniel Espinosa, director of “Safe House” and “Child 44” brings “Life”, a science fiction thriller with an interesting premise and a very good execution.
The movie tells the story of a group of scientists that are aboard The International Space Station and make one of the major discoveries ever: the first alien life form from Mars.
The group will name the specimen “Calvin” and begin to study it. The problem begins when Calvin begins to take his real form and begins attacking the members of the crew.
Now the crew must deal with the situation and figure out how to get rid of Calvin before he finishes with their lives and threats all life on earth.
I could tell that with “Life” director Daniel Espinoza learned from his mistakes in previous movies like “Child 44” which was a failure of the box office in 2015 and made the movie complete mess. Here not only did he directed a very good thriller but he knew how to capture every single moment where we are filled with fear and with his direction the cast delivered solid performances.
The script written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who both wrote last year´s “Deadpool” did again a remarkable job. I can tell that both writers are fans of the science fiction genre since I saw many influences from movies like “Alien”, “Aliens” and “2001: Space Oddissey”.
They created very good characters and wrote very intense scenes that work at every single level.
One of the major flaws that I have seen in this genre is that it has become a very predictable genre and actors that are involved in it have the tendency to overact making it by moments laughable.
With “Life” there was not a single moment of laughter and on the contrary it was a very tense movie.
Daniel Espinosa was very smart on using those elements of surprise. Just when you think that everything was going to be fine and nothing happens and suddenly you jump from the seat and the tension begins to escalate with this film.
The cinematography by Seamus McGarvey, who has shot films like “Nocturnal Animals”, “Atonement”, “Anna Karenina”, “The Avengers” and many more played a key role in this movie since every single shot had a meaning of the film.
The point of view from the alien when he is about to attack is very well made and director Daniel Espinosa made a good choice in illustrating that.
The score by Jon Ekstrand also plays a good role in this movie since the scenes with more tension the use of the music was very effective and you were in the shoes of the characters and had the feeling that you were in the space ship when the alien was inside.
“Life” is not just an ordinary science fiction film. It´s a thriller that doesn´t have the typical ending of good defeats evil. This is the opposite and is one of the most surprising endings that I have seen in a film of this genre in a long time.
I hope a sequel of this film doesn´t get made since it was clear what was going to happen.
Honestly I didn´t had any expectations for “Life” but again I was completely wrong and I was very impressed with the result of the film.
“Life” is one of the surprises of this year and I give it a huge recommendation for the directing and a very well written screenplay.