Life sucks.
Now that I’ve gotten that obvious line out of the way, let’s get something else out of the way: Life is an Alien ripoff. A damn blatant one too. Now, I’m not particularly averse to ripoffs. I love slasher movies and they are all ripoffs of Black Christmas. I rented many direct-to-video Alien ripoffs when they were a dime a dozen on the shelves of video stores in the 90s. But a ripoff must either be cheesy fun or bring something new to the table. This movie attempts neither and it certainly succeeds at doing nothing but making me wish I was watching Alien instead.
As for the plot….watch Alien. Actually, that’s partially a lie for two reasons. First, the characters in Alien were actually fun and interesting. I still remember their names and I haven’t watched that movie in a decade. The characters in Life are just generic scientists. There is the every-man scientist and the serious scientist and the female scientist (I would give her an attribute other than female, but the script sure as shit didn’t). There is a black scientist and an Asian scientist. I don’t remember any of their names and I don’t care. I don’t understand how they got big-name stars (Ryan Reynolds as every-man and Jake Gyllenhaal) for some of these parts. Second, this movie seemingly begins in the second act. Literally the opening scene of the movie is them finding the alien. We are given no background, no character development, nothing. It would be like if Alien opened with the chest burster scene.
The special effects are another key difference from Alien. Remember the amazing and terrifying creature design and effects from Alien? Well forget that shit. Instead, we have our characters being chased by a computer-generated starfish. I really can’t think of a better way to describe this thing. It is one of the worst creatures I have ever seen in a major studio release and it is devoid of both artistry and dread. The damn thing is laughable. And when it does kill someone, and I’m not exactly sure how it does so, we are treated to cgi blood that would have looked decent in an arcade game in 1997. For anyone that wants to debate the virtues of practical effects vs. computer effects, just watch this film and Alien as a double feature. If you still prefer computer effects, I will gladly beat you with a tire iron and spare the rest of the world from your influence.
The only surprising thing about this movie is its existence. If you have seen a sci-fi horror movie before, then you can see every moment of this film coming from a mile away. The stunning thing is that this movie has A-list stars and is a major theatrical release from Columbia Pictures in the year 2017. I rented more entertaining movies with the same plot from Hollywood Video when I was in middle school, and those at least had an excuse with the budget of a little league pizza party and casts filled with washed-up child stars. This thing is just a waste of time, money and talent and it takes itself way, way too goddamn seriously.
As I walked out of the theater, some random guy turned to me and said “man, you know there is going to be a sequel!” Thank you, random guy, for your misplaced enthusiasm. But there better not be a sequel. Life sucks enough without it.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(2017_film)#/media/File:Life_(2017_film).png
