Film Review – Life

It’s uncomfortable timing to have “Life” debut in the same year as the prequel “Alien: Covenant,” as it takes a remarkable amount of mojo from Ridley Scott’s original 1979 “Alien” creation. It doesn’t simply pinch outer space horror, but creature motivation, claustrophobic spaces, and combative characters. Helping to separate the picture from its obvious inspiration is a tone of real-world space exploration, combining a NASA procedural adventure with a grisly horror event, keeping director Daniel Espinosa (“Safe House,” “Child 44”) busy managing intricate science and engineering and the essentials in haunted house terror, crafting an initially suspenseful chiller that effectively introduces a threat from Mars, organically figuring out a way to unleash it on the crew. The rest of “Life” doesn’t share the same excitement for deadly encounters, quickly finding a groove where it can rest with repetitive scenes of survival and rumination. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com