I'm finding it hard to come up with something to write about for this film review. There's just a general lack of enthusiasm to say anything about this picture. I'll muster through and pull something out for you though. Let’s start with the general conceit of the film. It’s about these astronauts/scientists that find an extraterrestrial organism Cool! right? well, I guess. That's basically all this movie tries to be is a survival horror flick in space, on a space station. There's nothing more to the film, as its pretty bare on theme's. It could have simply been called Space Death. \
An organism to fear
Some say a film can only be as great as the antagonist. I tend to agree, the antagonist doesn't have to be some beast of a monster, or even physical, or even a person, it could very well be an idea or a situation. The antagonist must challenge and complicate everything for change to occur. Does this movie have a good antagonist? Not really, I mean, it looks okay, the alien does manage to kill a good bit of people. The baddie of this movie is your typical horror film trope, scary thing does scary stuff, though it never looks scary or does scary stuff. It does manage to evolve a little bit throughout the film which I thought was neat for a second. The way it kills people isn't very impressive either. Like almost everything in this film, it was.. ehh?
A cast to forget. (Remember)
The biggest reason I wanted to watch this movie was because Jake Gyllenhaal. He has so much talent and potential, that I'm dying to see anything he's in just to give it a chance. Unfortunately, that means I tend to watch a few not so good movies. Like most of those film, his performance is never what detracts from the films, it’s the content. His character, who is the lead, doesn't do or say much in the grand scheme of things. The rest of the cast, who in their defense are all talented, see Rebecca Ferguson in MI:5 hell yeah. Of course, Reynolds from Deadpool is funny. They all perform well, there's just nothing to it though. No character really evolves or grows. They're kind of just there, in space. An interesting note is that originally Reynolds was set to lead the film but had to back to a smaller role because of another film conflicting with the schedule. I can only imagine how much better of a film it would've been if Reynolds had stayed and was the main character. It would've at least added some nice jokes.
EVERYTHING ELSE
So... what else?
Well, the music was your generic horror score nothing fancy. The set design was nice and seemed realistic. The floating special effects looked good. The costumes looked good, I guess. The director didn't in my eye's try anything fancy or unique here, as I can hardly think of a sequence or scene that stuck with me. I can remember two scenes where red lights were flashing and I literally had no idea what was going on screen. I think that's it. I feel terrible because this film was so mediocre and average that I feel like I've said nothing about this movie. There was just nothing here.
In Ending
4/10 - Not Good
Life is almost as boring as, well, Life. The film has a great cast that have nothing to do. The story nothing to tell, A director with nothing to direct, music with nothing to supplement. The film is simply not good. Life isn't BAD it's just not memorable.