by Trizy Garcia
The reemergence of science-fiction films over the last couple of years like “Gravity,” “Interstellar,” and more recent “Passengers,” have catered to audiences’ curiosity in the search for something extraordinary outside planet Earth.
“Life” is no exception. With a little more suspense to make the film satisfying, it delivered just what it promised – a thriller surely to leave you thinking, “I’m definitely never going into space if I ever had the chance.”
“Life” released on March 24, introduced six scientists aboard the International Space Station (ISS), on a mission to study the findings of a collected sample from Mars to see if there really is life beyond Earth. After discovering a single-celled organism, the crew begin to celebrate the first proof of life beyond Earth.
The single-celled organism is named Calvin during a celebratory call to Earth, where a middle school got the chance to pick a name. Celebration soon turns into terror and a fight for survival as Calvin starts evolving, growing and threatening life on the ISS and Earth.
This is when the film becomes more suspenseful, and Calvin becomes such a large threat that he needs to be eliminated.
The film dives into the possibility of life beyond Earth, and whether the human race can handle such a discovery. “Life” comes at a point where the curiosity for other life forms is high, with people wanting to know if our next-door-neighbor Mars, can be inhabitable.
To anyone who has watched “Alien,” it seemed that this movie had similarities to it, but since the “Alien” movies began being released in 1979, it’s fair to say that most extra-terrestrial sci-fi films have an element of that movie mixed in, and it’s hard not to compare every movie of that sort to it.
The cast of “Life” is what made the film promising. With A-List stars like Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson, they really dove into their characters and made the audience feel the terror, claustrophobia and anger in the film.
Even though the film only garnered $12.5 million during its opening weekend out of its $58 million budget, it is definitely still worth the watch. Since “Beauty and The Beast’s” opening weekend on March 16, it has dominated the box office, out-shining any and every movie coming out for the rest of March and maybe the beginning of April. This is why “Life” didn’t get the amount of recognition it should have.
Either way, if movie fanatics need a film to watch after watching “Beauty and The Beast” three times in a row, “Life” is where they want to be. The thriller-filled movie made the audience feel the panic of every member on the ISS.
“Life” will leave the audience wondering if there really is life beyond our planet. Do we really want to communicate with it? The movie can be found playing at most movie theatres, and viewers unafraid of aliens should check it out.