I got more or less what I expected from Life and that was good enough for me

Rating: 6/10 (21 October 2017)

A team of scientists discover a rapidly evolving species on Mars and bring it aboard their International Space Station in order to study it. Things quickly get out of hand when this 'being' manages to break free from its isolation chamber and begins to hunt the crew down one by one.
Life borrows from a great number of films, but it's clearly most heavily influenced by Alien. This in itself doesn't make it a bad film - although on the same note it's also far too safe, predictable and by-the-numbers to be considered as a great work of art. To its credit though once the 'being' escapes the film does become relatively entertaining and the idea of the being picking the scientists off one by one does give the film some intensity - director Daniel Espinosa uses the isolated setting well giving the film a real claustrophobic feel to it - anyone think he's watched the original Alien film on a number of occasions?
As entertaining and enjoyable as Life is to watch it does have certain issues such as poorly developed characters who we don't really learn much about. Naturally this leaves them as merely fodder for the creature rather than people we can actually care about. You'll also have to endure the usual rigmarole of characters making dumb decisions which seem to happen to get the pulse racing as opposed to these decisions being based on logic for example.
Overall then there is some good and some bad here, but I expected an entertaining and enjoyable Alien style knock off and that's pretty much what I got. It didn't blow me away nor did it surprise me, but it entertained me and that's what really matters.