'Life' Review: A star-studded debacle in the 'alien movie universe'

Espinosa’s 'Life' is reminiscent of the 1979 Ridley Scott classic Alien in its mood.

But unlike the older film’s facehugger, 'Life'’s fictional extraterrestrial species, an extremely intelligent and capable species we are told, repeatedly – does not make a lasting impression.

'Life' is about a contamination crisis abroad a spacecraft, set sometime in the near future.

A bunch of scientists find evidence of life on Mars and are tasked with analysing it in secure conditions, away from planet Earth.

As the organism turns into a parasite-predator, the crew must find a way to kill it to survive.

One of the challenges for a movie that takes place entirely in a spacecraft is to have enough drama, without resorting to a close-the door scare every five minutes.

Unfortunately, 'Life' does feel like two hours of just rushing from one end of the spacecraft to the other.

The director doesn’t flinch away from gory encounters and uses violence repeatedly to justify its space horror genre.

The cast does a decent job, but there isn’t enough meat on the characters’ backstory for the audience to feel invested in their future.

Gyllenhaal, Reynolds and Ferguson are competent as the scientists, but fail to humanise their characters, making them expendable to us.

Gyllenhaal and Reynolds don’t make a better impression than their lesser-known counterparts and that’s because surprisingly, the plot doesn’t make their characters more distinct than the rest.

Espinosa turns things sentimental towards the end, which only makes it look painfully mawkish.

What does work is the way he handles the dramatic tension in the final sequence, ensuring that the movie ends with a flourish.