Life (2017) - USA
Reviewed by Andrew Chan
Sometimes, you don't need to reinvent the wheels, you can simply copy from the best and make it more thrilling and extreme. The result is "Life", a wonderful of example of how to unashamedly copy from Aliens and counters of horror movies established techniques and succeed. Director Daniel Espinosa knows the audience and exactly what they are after, by making the alien life form extremely smart and almost bullet proof in turn shocking and killing everyone along the way. By the end of the film, it is unlikely that you will remain unaffected and heart rates will likely rise without questions. This is how you film these kind of movies.
With a long list of quality ensemble casting, led by the unflappable Jake Gyllenhaal who is convincing as the outsider not wanting to mingle with earthlings. Rebecca Ferguson also survived long enough to create a character. While Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada impresses in most of his escape scenes. Ryan Reynolds was unfortunately given minimal screen time, before his brutal death.
All in all, Life is a highly enjoyable, fun, brutal, shock and horror film that happens to be about aliens and survivals. It works as it never tries to be anything more than the genre conventions. Espinosa manages to balance, horror and science fiction to the best possible equitation. The result is an immensely intense ride from the moment the alien life form started to get going. It managed to get my heart pumping and awe in shock horror. That's probably enough for me.
I rated it 3.5/5
Out on Blu Ray Steelbook at: https://neofilmshop.com/products/life-2017-blu-ray-steelbook-english-subtitled-hong-kong-version
