“Life” is a sci-fi horror film that is full of suspense from beginning to end. While simplistic in story and gorgeous visually through its wonderful set design and visual effects, Daniel Espinosa’s “Life” is a film worth watching but you can’t help but feel that the film could have been better.
TITLE: Life
FILM RELEASE: 2017
DURATION: 104 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 2:39:1 aspect ratio, English 7.1 DTS-HD MA, French, Portuguese 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English – Audio Description Track, Spanish, Thai 5.1 Dolby Digital. Subtitles: English, English SDH, Cantonese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Indonesian/Bahasa, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
COMPANY: Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
RATED: R (Language thrughout, Some Sci-Fi Violence and Terror)
RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2017
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick
Produced by Bonnie Curtis, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Julie Lynn
Executive Producer: Vicki Dee Rock, Don Granger
Co-Producer: Lisa Dennis
Associate Producer: Josh Robertson
Music by Jon Ekstrand
Cinematography by Seamus McGarvey
Edited by Mary Jo Markey, Frances Parker
Casting by Mindy Marin
Production Design by Nigel Phelps
Art Direction by Steven Lawrence
Set Decoration by Celia Bobak
Costume Design by Jenny Beavan
Starring:
Hiroyuki Sanada as Sho Murakami
Ryan Reynolds as Rory Adams
Rebecca Ferguson as Miranda North
Jake Gyllenhaal as David Jordan
Olga Dihovichnaya as Ekaterina Golovkina
Ariyon Bakare as Hugh Derry
Life is a terrifying sci-fi thriller about a team of scientists aboard the International Space Station whose mission of discovery turns to one of primal fear when they find a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars, and now threatens the crew and all life on Earth.
From filmmaker Daniel Espinosa (“Safe House”, “Child 44”, “Easy Money”) and writing duo, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (“Deadpool”, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”, “Zombieland”) comes their sci-fi action-horror film, “Life”.
The film stars Ryan Reynolds (“Deadpool”, “The Proposal”, “Green Lantern”), Jake Gyllenhaal (“Donnie Darko”, “Nightcrawler”, “Zodiac”), Rebecca Ferguson (“Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation”, “The Girl on the Train”, “Florence Foster Jenkins”), Hiroyuki Sanada (“The Wolverine”, “47 Ronin”, “Sunshine”), Olga Dihovichnaya (“House of Others”, “Twilight Portrait”, “Two Days”) and Ariyon Bakare (“Dancing on the Edge”, “A Respectable Trade”).
The film revolves around a crew of the six-member International Space Station (ISS) crew awaiting a probe returning from Mars which contains a soil sample that may contain evidence of extraterrestrial life.
As experiments are done on the soil sample, exobiologist Hugh Derry (portrayed by Ariyon Bakare) manages to revive a dormant cell sample which grows into a multi-celled organism. The news excites people on Earth and for a contest among school children, the winning school names the organism, “Calvin”.
But when Hugh revives Calvin via mild electric shocks, the organism becomes hostile and grabs onto Hugh’s hand. While his crewmates watch outside the lab and watch as Hugh tries to escape from the organism’s pull, Hugh manages to remove his hand but it was crushed by the organism.
As the group debate on what to do, keep the interior contained or save Hugh, Rory Adams (portrayed by Ryan Reynolds) makes the decision to save Hugh. And while he is able to get Hugh out of the room, Rory is captured by the organism which grabs onto his leg. As Rory grabs a flame device to kill the organism, the organism shows intelligence and flows into Rory’s mouth and kills him inside.
With communications cut off from Earth, the now five member crew must find a way to get help but also prevent themselves from being the next one killed by the alien organism. Will anyone survive from this ordeal?
VIDEO:
“Life” is presented in 1080p High Definition (2:39:1 aspect ratio). Featuring close-ups with awesome detail and with fantastic visual effects, the film looks amazing on Blu-ray. I didn’t notice any artifacts, banding issues or problematic problems with picture quality.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Life” is presented in English 7.1 DTS-HD MA, French, Portuguese 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English – Audio Description Track, Spanish, Thai 5.1 Dolby Digital.  The lossless soundtrack with the various spacecraft collisions to the way music is utilized to create frightening, intense moments, the surround channels are utilized very well. Dialogue and music are crystal clear and I was very pleased by the overall soundtrack!
Subtitles are in English, English SDH, Cantonese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Indonesian/Bahasa, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Life” comes with the following special features:
- Deleted Scenes– (5:46) Featuring six deleted scenes.
- Life: In Zero G – (6:52) The making of “Life” and shooting in the dark and shooting in zero gravity.
- Creating Life: The Art and Reality of Calvin – (7:07)Â A featurette on the creation of a creature and how it adapts and how it manipulates to its environment.
- Clausterphobic Terror: Creating a Thriller in Space – (7:28) A featurette about the thought of discovering extraterrestrial life.
- Astronaut Diaries – (2:58) Web-based astronaut diaries featuring the characters of the film.
EXTRAS:
“Life” comes with a slipcover and an Ultraviolet HD Digital code.
As we progress in technology and our discoveries of what lies in the soil of other planets are becoming known, with the pursuit of trying to find out if there is life outside of the planet Earth, the question is still unanswered, “is their life outside of our planet”?
The last decade alone, NASA has manage to discover so much about Planet Mars but also other planets in our solar system. But in Mars alone, with the discovery of evidence of water in Mars, what would happen if we were able to get a soil sample to find out if there is alien life in Mars?
And sure enough, “Life” is a film that takes a frightening yet thought-provoking look of what if we are opening Pandora’s box by pursuing this search for life?
In the case of the six-member International Space Station (ISS) crew, they quickly discover that the organism discovered from the Mars soil sample is quite violent and can quickly grow through eating the life of a living creature.
The film is no doubt a sci-fi horror film but it’s also a film about survival and trying to prevent this organism from reaching Earth.
We learn from a theory that the reason life was dormant in Mars is because there is no breathable air, but now that there is air, this organism is now alive and threatening the crew.
While one may think of “Aliens” which humans fought back or “Sunshine” (which also starred actor, Hiroyuki Sanada), the goal of the writers was to create a thought-provoking film because of what we are accomplishing with modern technology and discovering new things from other planets.
While there are people who are thinking that the film may be a prequel to the Marvel Comics film “Venom” (which is also written by “Life” writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese), I doubt that would be the case, without a Marvel logo at the beginning and no mention of Marvel anywhere in the credits.  But if there was a connection, it would be very cool!
But the film, while full of suspense, will entertain the popcorn suspense or sci-fi action film fans, the film doesn’t strive too far from the “trying to stay alive to the end of the film” concept which is quite banal in similar style of films. Character dynamics are not the film’s strongest area and because of that, so much of the film is focused on the survival aspect and character, exobiologist Hugh Derry running tests on the organism.
It’s not a deep film at all but I will say that I do enjoy suspense films, I do love Sci-fi films and while not the best, I was entertained. Especially since there is potential for a sequel.
The film looks and sounds great on Blu-ray and you also get a few special features as well.
Overall, “Life” is a sci-fi horror film that is full of suspense from beginning to end. While simplistic in story and gorgeous visually through its wonderful set design and visual effects, Daniel Espinosa’s “Life” is a film worth watching but you can’t help but feel that the film could have
