‘Life’ Delivers Effective Horror Undermined by Its Emotional Emptiness

Aryeh Harris-Shapiro

The release of “Life” so near “Alien: Covenant” is one of those inauspicious coincidences that have haunted many Hollywood films over the years. “Deep Impact” lost out to “Armageddon,” “Mirror Mirror” was tossed aside in favor of “Snow White and the Huntsman” And “White House Down” was unfairly overshadowed by the terrible “Olympus Has Fallen.” The question is whether “Life” will be a forgotten gem undermined by bigger, better product or an “Alien” knockoff doomed by the genuine article. Mostly, it’s the latter. “Life” isn’t a terrible movie or even a bad one, just a boilerplate genre exercise that will horrify you in the moment and leave your head the moment you exit the theater.

The film centers on a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station who retrieve a probe from Mars and set about trying to revive the inanimate life form they’ve found in the soil. The creature, nicknamed “Calvin” by an elementary school, grows quickly, turns hostile and starts devouring the crew. It’s a straight-down-the-middle take on the genre, with a terse, naturalist style, cardboard characters and a zero-g camera that apes the fluidity of “Gravity” without Cuarón’s chops or restraint. Director Daniel Espinosa and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick do a fine job staging the action around the International Space Station, using the segmented chambers and threat of the vacuum outside to get a lot of mileage out of a monster chasing people through corridors. Without character drama or real emotional stakes, however, the movie never rises above a workmanlike sense of craft that diminishes more and more as the film lurches towards its shrug of an ending.

“Life” is an ensemble movie full of talented actors asked to do very little. This type of casting has become popular recently with the twin successes of “The Martian” and “Spotlight,” movies that take advantage of their oddball casts’ presence and affect to bring emotion and texture to their detail-oriented, prosaic plotting. The difference is that those films had big emotional or thematic drives behind them. The only thing “Life” has on its mind is that human altruism and teamwork can’t beat an immortal super-predator. Jake Gyllenhaal’s space-addicted veteran, Ryan Reynolds’ blue-collar engineer and Rebecca Ferguson’s vigilant safety officer all test themselves against the alien, but the deck is ridiculously stacked against them. This isn’t a gripping struggle for survival, this is a slasher movie with idealistic scientists in place of horny teenagers.

If that sounds like a fun time, maybe “Life” is for you. But if it does, you’re probably already planning to see “Alien: Covenant.” And even if that film doesn’t surpass its divisive predecessor “Prometheus,” it will still be a deeper, more worthwhile experience than a movie whose ending boils down to a coin flip and whose best trait is surface competence.

“Life” opens nationwide March 24.