Jeri Jacquin
Swirling through space this week from director Daniel
Espinosa and Columbia Pictures is a film that teaches us to leave well enough
alone and enjoy LIFE!
On a space station high above Earth are six astronauts waiting
for a special delivery to prove there is life on Mars. Rory Adams (Ryan
Reynolds), Ekaterina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya), Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare),
Sho Murakami (Hiroyuki Sanada) and David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) are led by
Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) are the astronauts on board.
When Hugh begins experiments on the samples there is almost
an immediate as life grows. Sharing the news with the world, a local school
wins the honor of naming the single-cell organism Calvin.
As quickly as Calvin grows, they crew panics when it becomes
clear that something is wrong with the life form. Reviving it is the beginning
of what becomes a race for survival between the humans on board and the life
form that is growing and becoming smarter.
They must keep the creature from getting to Earth at all
costs – even if the cost is their lives!
Gyllenhaal as David is a man clearly meant to live in space.
Not in a hurry to return to Earth, he keeps his head when everything begins to
go wrong. Gyllenhaal has this unique ability to look calm even when his
character is anything but. I enjoyed ever moment of his performance but then
again I have been pretty thrilled with his work these past years.
Reynolds as Rory brings a sense of sarcasm and quick lines
to this character. Of course it isn’t a stretch for Reynolds to do that as he
has made a fantastic career out of doing just that. But when it’s time to be
intense, he can bring it with a fierceness that you won’t soon forget.
Sanada as Sho is on board while his wife is waiting to have
their child. He cares about every member of the crew and yet wonders if he will
ever see home again. I am actually pretty thrilled that Sanada is in the film,
he is an actor that deserves a lot of attention.
Bakare as Hugh is totally infatuated with Calvin but then
again that’s it is his job to be. Finding life in the space station a freeing
experience, he becomes a little obsessed with the creature. Dihovichnaya as
Ekaterina is smart and fast when it comes to understanding how the creature
begins to think.
Other cast include Elizabeth Vargas as 20/20 Anchor, Camiel
Warren-Taylor as Dominique and Naoko Mori as Kazumi.
TUBS OF POPCORN: I give LIFE four tubs of popcorn out of
five. Of course the film has bits that remind me of other space-alien films and
there are parts that are fairly predictable. That being said, none of that
deterred me from having a great time.
There are jumps, jaw drops, moments of ‘awwwwwwwdamn’, tension
and it all happens in a small space - relatively speaking. The film is very in
your face but that makes sense since there isn’t anything else to distract from
the story and nothing for the actors to hide behind. Instead it’s straight on
performance and fans of this genre of film are going to have a great time.
Director Espinosa has actually made several films that I
enjoy with EASY MONEY in 2010 and Tom Hardy in CHILD 44 in 2015. He has worked
with Reynolds before along with Denzel Washington in the 2012 film SAFE HOUSE.
So he is batting 4-4 with me!
In the end – be careful what you search for!
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