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Movie review: ‘Life’

Espinosa tries, fails with ‘Alien’ imitation

“http://ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com/www.sungazette.com/images/2017/03/29174835/30Life.tif”>In this image released by Columbia Pictures, Ryan Reynolds, left, and Jake Gyllenhaal appear in a scene from, "Life." (Columbia Pictures-Sony via AP)The best thing you can say about “Life,” the latest space set creature feature directed by Daniel Espinosa about an international space crew discovering life on Mars, is that it’s fine. It’s a competently crafted “Alien” ripoff that doesn’t develop the terror of its monster or the awe in its discovery — a single-celled organism from hell we call Calvin. The worst thing you could say about it: It’s lifeless.

“Life” is set on an international space station that hovers right outside the Earth’s atmosphere. How close we’re set to the occupants home planet offers an interesting sense of comfort that quickly turns into despair. It’s crew, comprised of an array of mega stars playing scientists, all have their own distinct scientific background.

Jake Gyllenhaal is Dr. David Jordan, a senior medical officer who’s been there the longest and has developed a certain affection for living in space; Rebecca Ferguson is Dr. Miranda North, a quarantine officer who’s ultimate goal is to prevent infection; Ariyon Bakare is Hugh Derry, a parapalegic biologist with perhaps the most important task; and Hiroyuki Sanada is Sho Murakami, a Japanese systems engineer who’s significant because of ongoing communication with his pregnant wife, which offers a terribly underdeveloped piece of connective tissue for earth. Ryan Reynolds also briefly appears as Roy Adams, the pilot of the space station.

Problem is — and this is “Life’s” biggest problem — these characters don’t behave like scientists — or even logical, rational human beings.

Things like fuel become a problem on more than one occasion and the final realization, which I won’t spoil for you, involves the kind of solution that’s been available to these characters at all times.

It’s when these characters come across a soil sample from Mars that they first discover Calvin, who’s name is chosen by Calvin Coolidge Elementary in a global naming competition. Calvin, first seen as some little looking goo, is described as a single celled organism that’s all muscle, all brain and all eye. He could be the cure to all known disease, the answer that solves many of earth’s problems. He also could be the end of human existence as we know it.

His design, a remarkably inventive alien that rapidly grows to include all sorts of tentacles and unique characteristics, is a serious benefit to the films quality. The direction and cinematography on the other hand, though aesthetically pleasing, doesn’t attempt to incite the kind of terror it should. So much of “Life” takes itself far too seriously for something you’d call a creature feature.

Surprisingly, “Life” was written by “Zombieland” and “Deadpool” screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Yet, unlike those two features,“Life” plays it entirely straight and lacks a real point of view or sense of humor. I assume, there presence also hilariously alerted fans to assume “Life” was some sort of “Venom” prequel, but I can assure you, there is nothing remotely comic-booky about “Life.”

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