Movie Review on the movie 'Life'

Introduction
Life is a 2017 American science fiction horror film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Rhett Reese
and Paul Wernick and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds. The film follows a
six-member crew of the International Space Station that uncovers the first evidence of life on Mars.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

Produced by David EllisonDana GoldbergBonnie CurtisJulie Lynn

Written by Rhett ReesePaul Wernick

Starring Jake GyllenhaalRebecca FergusonRyan ReynoldsHiroyuki SanadaAriyon BakareOlga Dihovichnaya

Music by Jon Ekstrand

Cinematography Seamus McGarvey

Edited by Frances Parker Mary Jo Markey

Production company Columbia Pictures[1]Skydance Media[1]

Distributed by Columbia Pictures[2] Sony Pictures Releasing[1][2]

Release date March 18, 2017 (SXSW) March 24, 2017 (United States)

Running time 104 minutes[3]

Country United States

Language English

Budget $58 million[4]

Box office $100.5 million[5]

Rating 8/10

Thesis Statement -

Movie Summary
The unmanned Pilgrim 7 space probe is returning from Mars to the
Earth with a soil sample that might contain evidence of extraterrestrial
life, when it enters an asteroid field and is severely damaged.

The six-member ISS crew captures the spacecraft and exobiologist Hugh
Derry revives a dormant cell from the sample; it quickly grows into a
multi-celled organism that American school children name "Calvin". He
realizes that the cells can change their specialisation - like muscle,
sensor, neuron - during their life span, unlike the cells in terrestrial
organisms. After an atmospheric accident in the lab, Calvin becomes
dormant. Hugh revives Calvin with mild electric shocks, but Calvin
immediately becomes hostile and attacks Hugh, crushing his hand.
While Hugh lies unconscious from Calvin's attack, Calvin uses the
electric shock tool Hugh wielded to escape its immediate enclosure.
Now free in the lab room, Calvin devours a lab rat by absorbing it and
grows in size. Engineer Rory Adams uses the opportunity to enter the
room and rescue Hugh. However, Calvin latches onto Rory's leg and
physician David Jordan locks Rory in the room to keep Calvin contained.
After Rory unsuccessfully attacks Calvin with a flame thrower, Calvin
enters his mouth, killing him by devouring his organs from the inside.
Emerging from Rory's mouth even larger, Calvin escapes through a fire-
control vent. Hugh theorizes that lack of breathable air on Mars is what
kept the organism dormant.
Finding their communication with Earth cut off, due to overheating of
the communication systems, mission commander Ekaterina Golovkina
performs a space walk to fix the overheating. Calvin, having breached
the cooling systems, attacks her outside the ISS and ruptures her
spacesuit's coolant system in the process, causing the toxic coolant to
fill her helmet. She struggles to get back into ISS, but eventually realizes
that Calvin will also be able to re-enter the space station. She refuses to
open the airlock to seek help, and stops David from doing so as well.
This keeps Calvin out of the station, but also causes Ekaterina to drown
in her spacesuit and her body to drift away into space.

Calvin attempts to enter the station through the thrusters. The crew try
to use the thrusters to prevent Calvin from entering these openings, but
their attempts fail and the station loses too much fuel. The ISS enters a
decaying orbit, which will eventually cause the station to burn up in
Earth's atmosphere. Pilot Sho Murakami informs the crew that they
need to use the remaining fuel to get back into a safe orbit, but the
attempt would allow Calvin back into the station. The crew then plan to
make Calvin dormant by sealing themselves into one module and
venting the atmosphere from the rest of the station.

After the remaining crew finalize preparations, Hugh enters cardiac

arrest. The crew then discover that Calvin has been feeding off Hugh's
leg. Having grown into a larger tentacled creature, Calvin attacks the
remainder of the crew. Sho seals himself in a sleeping pod as Calvin
attempts to crack the glass and consume him. David and the quarantine
officer Miranda North use Hugh's corpse as bait to lure Calvin away
from Sho and trap it in a module to deprive it of oxygen.

Having received a distress call prior to the damage to the ISS

communication system, Earth sends a Soyuz capsule as a fail-safe plan
to push the station into deep space. The capsule docks with the station
and starts pushing it into deep space. Believing the situation to be a
rescue mission, Sho leaves his pod and rushes to board the arriving
ship, forcing open the capsule's hatch; Calvin then attacks him and the
Soyuz crew. The encounter causes a docking breach that results in the
capsule detaching and crashing into the ISS, killing Sho and the Soyuz
pilots. David and Miranda, the only survivors, now realize that the
incident has again caused them to enter a decaying orbit. Aware that
Calvin could survive re-entry, David recalls two escape pods, planning to
lure Calvin into one pod and pilot it into deep space, allowing Miranda
to escape to the other pod.

David lures Calvin into his pod while Miranda enters her pod, creating a
black box message notifying the world about her colleagues' deaths and
containing instructions to destroy Calvin should he make his way to the
Earth. Both then launch their pods at the same time. As they make their
way, one of the pods hits debris and is knocked off course. In David's
pod, Calvin attacks him as he struggles to send the pod into deep space.
The pods then separate; the earthbound pod performs a controlled re-
entry and lands in the ocean near a boat with two Chinese fishermen.
As they approach and look inside the pod, it is revealed to be that of
David, who is encased in a web-like substance. Meanwhile, due to
damage sustained from hitting the debris, Miranda's navigation system
malfunctions and fails, and she screams in helpless horror realizing the
hostile organism might reach the earth in the other pod, while hers is
hurtling into deep space. Back on Earth, despite David's warning the
fishermen open the hatch, while more boats arrive.

Film Plot Explained:

The Crew:

Dr. David Jordan (Jake) - Senior Medical Officer

Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca) - Quarantine Officer

Rory "Roy" Adams (Ryan) - Pilot of the International Space Station

Sho Murakami (Hiroyuki) - System Engineer

Hugh Derry (Ariyon) - Lead Scientist

Katerina Golovkina (Olga) - Commander of the Crew

What is the crew up to?

Well, they are on a mission to collect and analyze soil from Mars. They
suspect that they may have found life.

What happens in the beginning, what are they trying to catch?

One of the pods that contains the soil sample is out loose. So Roy heads
out and uses a clamp to catch the pod floating by. This part is not very
significant but if they missed catching the pod, there would be no story.
Because in the pod, is Martian soil and in the soil is a single cell of
Martian origin.

The single cell seems to be dead. But when Hugh changes the
atmospheric settings to match ancient Earth, the organism is revived
from its dormant state. The organism begins to grow and is now
multicellular. Hugh notices that each of the cells, unlike human cells - is
all muscle, all brain, and all eye. In humans, different types of cells come
together to form eyes, muscles and the brain. For the alien, the cells are
kind of supercells. I know I'm trying to justify the explanation in the
film. But honestly, I have no idea what the concept of this all brawn and
brain thing is. But hey, it's fiction. America names the alien Calvin. The
organism grows rapidly. However, there is an accident in the lab that
messes up the atmospheric conditions. Calvin goes dormant. Hugh, the
smartass, uses electricity to try and resuscitate Calvin. Calvin gets pissed
and breaks the electricity wand and as a bonus, breaks Hugh’s hand too.
Hugh faints. Calvin uses the broken wand to rip out of containment unit.
Calvin then consumes a friendly neighbourhood lab rat and grows in
size.

Roy enters to save Hugh. He gets Hugh out but gets trapped with Calvin.
Roy tries to flame-throw Calvin but fire doesn’t seem to affect it. Calvin
retaliates by entering Roy’s mouth and ripping him from inside out.
Calvin exits Roy and has become even bigger. The still active flame
thrower triggers a fire alarm and air vents open up. Calvin escapes from
one of the air vents.

The ship loses connectivity to Earth. Sho sends out an SOS call which
reaches Earth unknown to the crew. Katerina decides to step out and
have a look at the antenna. She realizes that the coolant has been
consumed by Calvin as food. This has caused the comm failure as well.
Calvin attacks her as she tries to reenter. Her suit is damaged and
coolant from her suit enters her head chamber. She realizes that the
rest of the crew would be put in danger and hence decides to drown
and die outside. But Calvin makes its way to the thrusters to enter. How
is Calvin able to breathe outside the ship? Doesn't it need oxygen? Well,
Calvin is shown to be desperate, it's trying to get to the oxygen in
Katerina's suit. After she dies, Calvin is desperate to enter the space
station from the Thrusters. Calvin is a lot bigger that it was in the
containment unit. Hence it's able to last a while longer without oxygen.
Okay, then how about the pressure? Isn't it vacuum in space? Alright,
fine, this bit makes no sense at all.

So why is Calvin on a killing spree?

It’s primal instinct. It is a carbon-based lifeform, it needs to survive, it

needs food. Humans are food. Humans have also pissed it off. So it's
merely reacting to protect itself.

Sho tries to turn on the thrusters as Calvin tries to enter them. He runs
low on fuel doing this. Calvin is unharmed. Apart from this, all the
thrusting has caused the space station to begin entering Earth’s orbit.
They can’t have Calvin entering Earth. So they save the remaining fuel
to correct the course out of the Earth’s orbit and Calvin reenters the
ship.

What's up with Hugh and how is Calvin on his leg?

As the crew plans to cut off atmosphere from the rest of the station
except their own, Calvin has already made it to their module. Unknown
to the crew, Calvin latches on to Hugh’s legs. Hugh can’t feel this
because he’s paraplegic. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that? Hugh
can’t feel his legs. He goes into cardiac arrest. Let's take a minute and
see what Hugh is up to here. Hugh has some crazy affinity with Calvin.
He sees Calvin approach while the others are taping up the place. He
doesn’t say anything. He actually allows Calvin to latch on to his leg. He
then goes on to talk about how the nature of life is through destruction.
How Calvin doesn’t hate them but has to kill them for its own survival.
He then touches his leg and then begins to lose consciousness. Then he
says “I’m sorry”. Hugh's helping Calvin here. He's lost it and the crew
doesn't realize this. As they use a defibrillator on Hugh, they notice
Calvin emerging from the leg. They make a run for it. David and Miranda
make it into a module and Sho shuts himself into a sleep capsule. Calvin
has eaten a part of Hugh along with his tracker. So now they are able to
track Calvin’s location. Hugh dies.

What’s that thing about the firewall?

David and Miranda use Hugh’s dead body to lure it into a module.
Remember that SOS call that reached Earth? Well, Miranda had planned
earlier that in case the crew loses control of the space station, Earth
should just send a spacecraft to push the space station into deep space.
So the incoming spacecraft is doing just that.

It locks-on and begins to push. Sho thinks that rescue has arrived and
makes his way to the spacecraft and manually opens the latch. Calvin
attacks. David and Miranda try to save Sho but they can’t. The manual
hatch opening sends the capsule spinning onto the space station
damaging it severely. The temperature and oxygen begin to drop
rapidly.

David and Miranda are in a module and Calvin in the other. As they
prepare to die, they realize all the pushing has caused the space station
to drop into Earth’s orbit again. Calvin could survive the reentry, and
Earth is doomed. David has one last idea. He recollects two escape pods
that are configured to autopilot back to Earth. He tells Miranda to get
into one pod and make it to Earth. He decides to lure Calvin with the
oxygen glowing thingy things into the other pod. He plans to override
the autopilot and fly into deep space with Calvin onboard.

Film Ending Explained

David lures Calvin into his pod and Miranda enters hers. Miranda has a
navigation failure and begins to go off course from Earth. It is her pod
that begins to float into deep space not David's. David tries to pilot his
pod into deep space but Calvin immobilizes him. David is unable to
control the ship and it enters the Earth's orbit. It lands safely in
Vietnam. Two fishermen come to check the pod out. While the
audience is made to think that Miranda is the one who enters Earth, we
are shown that is actually David’s pod with Calvin. Surprisingly, David is
alive and Calvin has spread out like a web over David.

Why has Calvin kept David alive?

Well, it could be because the reentry drastically changed the

atmospheric conditions in the pod which may have caused Calvin to go
dormant. Alternatively, Calvin plans to use David as bait to get out of
the pod. Either way, the film ends with multiple boats coming to the
pod to rescue David as he screams for them to not to. They manage to
open the Pod. The film ends. Earth is doomed unless there is a sequel.

Review
Life” delivered pretty much exactly what I expected. It’s a solid B-
science fiction-horror-movie with a good cast and a couple of visually
stunning scenes, but ultimately, it’s nothing special. Like most films of
the genre, it owes a lot to “Alien” – but also seemed to be heavily
influenced by “Gravity”. This is especially true for the long scene at the
beginning which appears to be one continuous shot, capturing the
action with a seemingly floating camera. Since I’m a sucker for scenes
like that, I loved this long take, and thought that it was the highlight of
the movie. Unfortunately, nothing that came afterwards lived up that
promising beginning, and overall, I felt that the movie pretty much went
continuously downhill with each passing minute.

“Life” doesn’t even try to hide which characters it thinks are more and
which are less important. The former get far more attention, screen
time, and at least a basic background that should enable audiences to
feel some sort of connection with them. The latter are hardly sketched
out and, thus, are the first to die a slow and painful death at the hands
of “Calvin”. Granted, the first death came as a little bit of a surprise, but
afterwards, if was rather predictable, and in the end, the only real
question left was if one or two of them would survive, or if they’d all
die. During the middle part of the movie, though, there wasn’t really a
lot of tension, since you only waited for the less important characters to
bite the stardust. Also, once again, there characters don’t always act in
the most intelligent way, and some of them really seem to see this as
some sort of application video for the Prometheus. Their final plan,
even though I get that it was an act of desperation, seemed especially
badly thought out. And there also is the occasional bit where either the
astronauts or the monster depend on coincidence, otherwise the movie
would have been over way sooner. And the ending as well as their
choice of credits song had me roll my eyes.
But even though “Life” is not especially innovative or surprising, it
mostly manages to entertain. This is mostly due to the nice cast, who do
their best with the little to nothing that they’re given. Daniel Espinosa’s
direction is also solid, even though it lacks tension, and he never again
reaches the high of the aforementioned awesome one-take-scene in
the beginning. The sets are nice and seem convincing, and the effects –
especially the ISS – are top-notch. And the monster was nice, and didn’t
seem like something that we’ve already seen a zillion times. Granted, it
won’t win any prices for originality, and the predictable finale hurts it
considerably. But as long as you don’t expect too much, and bring a
certain affection for the genre, you should find some life in this solid,
run-of-the-mill B-SF-horror-movie.

Whats most effective, and telling, is how levelheadedly our egghead

protagonists handle the alien threat. “Calvin doesn’t hate us,” Hugh
says. “He has to kill us in order to survive.” Later, the crew changes its
tune: Before the final showdown, one survivor remarks, “I know it’s not
scientific, but I feel pure fucking hatred for that thing.” Well, all right.
None of this was ever going to be scientific, but it was nice of Life to
pretend for a bit.

It will give you the thrill however the noticeable space inaccuracies,
despite the movie's serious efforts to stay meticulous, might take out all
the fun for a space enthused viewer. Efforts again fail; the "Life" in the
movie which is introduced at great scientific levels, (S.A) the single cell
stage and growth (as seen never before), later turn out to be just
another weird shaped alien-mummy chasing humans and all the
science-backing fades. Surprised to see two prominent actors in waste
away some good acting on this one.