Science Fiction meets horror is not a new concept. The idea that aliens exist in space and upon meeting humanity decides it’s time for us to die is pretty standard. The creativity in this type of story can be found in the particular methods used by the alien(s) or space explorers. What makes this alien take over attempt different and therefore worth watching? Let’s dive in and see with “Life” in this box office review…
An international space station crew is preparing to capture a pod that is traveling back from Mars. They catch the pod, as we have seen in the movie previews, and begin studying a single cell life form that seems to be growing at an alarming rate. Things go awry for the crew and it becomes a battle for survival. This is the basic premise or plot of this particular movie.
Overall, I wasn’t impressed with the film. It starts with a scene that is completely unnecessary to anything in the story and then jumps right into the characters on the space station. I did appreciate how the story wasted no time in getting to the conflict of the movie which is the alien life form. Almost immediately we see that the alien is becoming aware and dangerous and the tension builds from there. Unfortunately, the overall pacing is very unbalanced. At times my heart rate was up and then it grinds to a halt and seems to linger in these slower moments before racing back to tension again. It was stop and go and that was annoying for me, personally.
The acting in this film was all done well. The talented cast played their specific roles to a believable level and took what was a subpar movie and made it adequate at best. Thankfully we have the cast that we did otherwise this movie would’ve been one big snooze fest. The fear, the happiness, the pride, the sadness are all emotions delivered on screen by each character and it gave me a connection to each one of them before they are killed. Once they’re killed the camera lingers a bit long on a corpse. I speculate this was done to create a sense of loss and heightened tension. Quite the opposite effect for me, it came across as wasted screen time in what was an energized and engaging scene.
“Life” is in theaters now! I don’t recommend you see this on the big screen. There’s nothing spectacular about this film that warrants your hard earn dollars being spent on ticket prices and concession. It’s a mediocre movie at best and the ending was edited so oddly that it confused me instead of surprised me. I believe the ending was designed to surprise us, and maybe for some it did, but I was confused. When I replayed the scenes in my mind I didn’t get how that ending transpired. It’s worth $1 at Redbox once it’s available and even then you have to enjoy science fiction meets horror films to care.
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