A Second Look at Life: Why it was Pleasantly Surprising

When going into Life, one is instantly reminded of Alien but there is a much deeper fear that this movie instills in its audience.

As comes with most space movies, Life brings an element of fear for the unknown and for space that no other movie has done recently. While Gravity gave us that fear of being lost in space with no real way to get home, Life takes us on a journey that is even more thrilling.

For those who don’t know the premise of the movie, it’s simple. A space station has a mission to collect a specimen from Mars. They do, they realize that this specimen is a fully functioning being and then they end up naming it Calvin.

As the specimen grows, the grew begins to get afraid of what Calvin really is and can grow to be. So when the movie turns into the alien thriller we were promised, there shouldn’t be any surprises right?

Not Another Alien

Wrong. Not only does this alien adventure scare us in the depths of space, but it shows us that there might be beings far more intelligent than ourselves out there and that we as humans would be nothing to them.

The movie is pretty fantastic overall. With amazing performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson, the movie has an all-star cast. That doesn’t necessarily mean we see them a lot. For instance, and this is a spoiler so stop reading now, Ryan Reynolds is billed as one of the leads of the film.

That would make sense in any other Ryan Reynolds movie. But he’s in Life for probably about 20 minutes of the entire film. To be honest, he’s the first causality of Calvin. It really helped set the tone for the film that no one is safe.

Next: ‘Life’ Finds a Way to Scare and Entertain

Overall, give Life a chance. It was great and if you like being scared, then you’ll love this movie.