Life: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station whose mission turns into one of primal fear when they discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars and now threatens the crew and all life on Earth.
It’s no secret that this film feels and looks a lot like Alien but to be honest that’s okay with me because this film actually really good. Let me add that it isn’t the best science fiction film out there BUT I think the star power of Gyllenhaal and Reynolds definitely give it weight. The plot, as I implied, didn’t feel like anything new but it did have the inner workings of a really good sci-fi thriller. The moments where we saw the creature were filled with suspense and unpredictability which made for some really exciting scenes and the cast had really great chemistry. One of the things that made me wince a bit was that the movie leaned on the typical character tropes of “new father” or “at the end of their career” which was unnecessary. I understand that they were trying to create a connection with the characters but it could’ve been done in different way. I thought that a great job was done at making the creature look very innocent and nice at first then considerably more dangerous as the movie progressed. It wasn’t a menacing presence at the start and I think that’s what made it an interesting and compelling look at a creature feature in the end. The film was a nice change from what I’ve seen lately as far as sci-fi goes but I will say that it is a tad predictable unfortunately so if you do pick this up then definitely keep that in mind. Either way the movie is super entertaining and definitely one to check out. If you dug Aliens (and those kind of genre films) then you’ll like this one as well. 7/10
Special Features:
Deleted Scenes – A few pretty interesting scenes that are actually pretty good to check out but watch these before you even watch the movie for sure because there could potentially be spoilers.
Life: In Zero G – A look at what it was trying to recreate the zero gravity environment within the film.
Creating Life: The Art and Reality of Calvin – A nice feature on the creature of the film and the idea of life on Mars.
Claustrophobic Terror: Creating a Thriller in Space – This takes a look at the film as a whole and how the space setting creates a contained thriller.
Astronaut Diaries – The characters in the film give some quick thoughts about their mission.
