Life - Short Movie Review

By: Hamza Shafique

Desi Ratings: 3/5 Stars

I know I am bit late in writing review for Life and usually I don’t write reviews If I am this late in review game but I made an exception for Life only because It's super awesome. After a long while I have experienced some good suspense on screen. I will not call this movie a horror science fiction as all the elements of space technology and alien life form are believable and feel close to reality.

Film is about a group of scientists on the space station examining samples collected from mars, where they find dormant cellular life form. After certain experiments the organism comes to life and start growing on exceptionally high rate. It becomes dormant again due to some accident in the lab where it was being experimented on. This time British biologist Hugh Derry played by Ariyon Bakare tries to revive it by giving some mild electric shocks but Alien life form takes it as an attack and gets into defensive mode. From here onward we see Calvin (name given to the alien life form) evolve into a monster and Scientist at the space station in survival mode.
Screenplay is fast paced and gripping. This film is a monster horror film rather than your average alien science fiction. Daniel Espinosa as director used a very humble approach toward the treatment of the subject and has created moments of intense suspense that will leave audience with feeling of excitement mixed with tension and fear. The only issue with the screenplay is that overall plot is somewhat predictable, which is usually the case with such storylines. Also, I wanted a bit more of Ryan Reynolds’ on screen as his character is much smaller compared to the other 2 on the main poster.
In a monster horror film, there is usually very less scope for actors but it’s not the case here. All characters are well written and performed. It is nice to see Jake Gyllenhaal in something meaningful after a while. Rest of the cast is also heavy and have big names like, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson and Hiroyuki Sanada, who as usual excel.
I loved Calvin (alien life form) characteristics and his evolution from a single cell to a scary full-fledged winged monster was great. CGI for Calvin is also believable. One big achievement of Life is that the Alien life form outlook doesn’t get on the silly side as in most such movies audience is usually laughing at the monster rather than being scared.
LIFE is a summer thrill ride which should not be missed. It’s still running in some UAE cinemas, so go catch it. I go with 3 stars