Life
(2017)
(SPOILERS) There’s nothing terribly original about Life. Quite the reverse: you’re likely
to suffer recurring déjà vu at its frequent employment of familiar tropes and
plot devices. For much of the running time, however, that scarcely matters, so
efficient is Daniel Espinosa’s direction and the conviction with which his cast
runs through its paces. As Alien/The Thing/Prometheus
knock-offs go, this isn’t going to win any awards for depicting a newly-discovered
lifeform running amok despite a highly
trained and disciplined team rigorously observing protocols that would contain such
a contingency, but then, it was never going to be that kind of movie.
Some may, as a result, find Life increasingly exasperating for the ISS crew’s sometimes blockheaded
decisions, but I was mostly happy to go with the flow – hey, I’m the guy who likes
Prometheus – and I found the first
hour, in particular, to be a tense, claustrophobic ride, even as I was inwardly
shaking my head at well-worn no-nos such as breaking quarantine (Alien) and never, ever, whatever you do,
touching the newly-discovered sentient alien life form like it’s a cute ickle
baba (Prometheus). Using
flamethrowers in such an environment – definitely not an arena the size of the
Nostromo – also seems entirely foolhardy. But, if you can get past the lip
service paid to verisimilitude, many of the slowly-whittled crew’s subsequent
actions appear, if not entirely reasonable, at least not risible.
Life (perhaps the
least commanding title one could imagine for such a movie, which is neither
starring Eddie Murphy nor about the guy who photographed James Dean) admittedly
retreats to more pedestrian thrills once we’ve become familiar with the
creature’s general proportions (think vicious starfish-cum-octopus) and modus
operandi, as the crew float fraughtly through a succession of opening and
closing hatches while attempting to avoid/lure it.
Espinosa and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland, Deadpool) have a number of tricks up their sleeves, such that, while
you’re never in doubt on the general trajectory, it isn’t always evident what
order the characters are going to peg it. I was fairly satisfied Ryan Reynolds
was going to exit early on (the big/recognisable name in a Janet Leigh/John
Hurt moment), purely because he seems to have a thing for that of late, but the
biologist (Ariyon Bakare of Jonathan
Strange & Mr Norrell), earmarked by the trailers as an early casualty
and whose obsessiveness brings this down on everyone (if there’s any lesson
here, and it’s thin, it’s the old one of the dangers of unchecked scientific
inquiry), survives for much longer than anyone probably expected.
So too, in these movies the creatures are usually vulnerable
to fire, but it’s established early on that being flambéed is not going to kill
the thing (Calvin) even if it doesn’t much like it. And, in contrast to the
tendency to keep such finds top secret for bioweapons divisions, the discovery
of life on Mars is announced across the globe immediately (as if!)
The cast don’t have much to work with, character-wise (you
know the writers aren’t exactly stretching themselves when their choice of Jake
Gyllenhaal’s backstory is PTSD resulting from the most recent US conflict, so
Syria in this instance), but play their parts with sufficient conviction that
the minimalism is more a help than a hindrance. Reynolds is surely improv-ing
during his scenes, as he’s the only one whose dialogue has any spark, but it’s Rebecca
Ferguson’s quarantine officer who brings the most to the scenario; Gyllenhaal
does his intense-stare thing, but without anywhere productive to channel it
(apart from Goodnight Moon), while
Bakare brings the right air of blinkered tunnel vision to his early scenes. Olga
Dihovichnaya and Hroyuki Sanada, as the captain and the system engineer
respectively, make less of an impression, although I could have done without
the unsubtle paralleling of the latter’s wife giving birth with the “baby” on
the station.
Technically, Life
is first rate, the simulated weightlessness never in question and never slowing
down the picture. Sure, some of the CGI is obvious when it comes to exterior
carnage, and the creature is never in any danger of becoming an iconic design,
but generally there’s a pleasing sense of groundedness to the environment (albeit,
they’re in a luxuriously roomy ISS, complete with sleeping pods and escape
capsules). There’s also a disturbingly convincing rat absorption that far outweighs
any minor upset over actual humans being slain.
As I say, once the picture has established the parameters of
its threat and we’re faced with the usual configuration of evacuate/prevent Calvin
reaching civilisation/self-sacrifice, I was quite prepared for Life to have done all it was going to,
interest-wise, and that we were set for a standard ending in which Jake
heroically sacrifices himself while Rebecca escapes to Earth. I foresaw few
potential variations (such as: Fergusson having to dispose of the creature herself
when it gets wise to Gyllenhaal’s plan, or when his pod veers off course, she
he has to course correct with her own, so they both expire). As a consequence, I
was genuinely impressed by the apocalyptically bleak ending, one that
retrospectively ups the game of the entire picture.
It’s isn’t as if you don’t get these sorts of dread climaxes
(they’re commonplace in zombie movies), but in this context, it’s the sort of
resolution you’d be more likely to discover as a rejected alternate on the DVD
release. It’s especially notable for how
much investment has clearly been put into it, not only for the dexterity of the
fake out (we think Jake’s heading into space, and Rebecca to Earth, when its
vice versa), but also for leaving both its doomed protagonists alive in the
final shots. And that’s without Jon Ekstrand’s overwhelming ‘You’re all doomed!”
score.
Espinosa’s direction is considerably more focussed and fluid
than we’ve seen from his Hollywood excursions thus far, going some way towards making
up for the mess that was Child 44
(although, with that cast and story potential, it does represent a significant demerit). He only occasionally appears
to lose his bearings (the scene of the Soyuz docking seems to have lost some material,
as Calvin attacking its crew appears only in long shots).
So yeah, Life
isn’t going to win any awards for creative inspiration, or any awards for
anything much, but as endings go, it’s armed with a doozy that should ensure a healthy post-theatrical life (it appears to have been rather
ignored in cinemas). Maybe it’s just as well it won’t make enough money for an
ill-advised sequel… Although, as ill-advised sequels go, that’s one movie I’d
kind of like to see.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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