Wasted Potential

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2018)

The cast was great with what they were given. The first and second acts had me intrigued, but sometime after that first hour, things really began to derail for Life. The direction is certainly a problem for this film, which had all the essential components of a great flick, but ends up being a rental at best when you've exhausted all of your other options.
The movie tried to be Alien, but ends up being closer to Prometheus by falling into the same traps. It fails to capture what made the original Alien franchise so interesting. The dialogue is lacking in many ways. The characters, while well acted, lack anything that makes them interesting. It even falls prey to old tropes about scientists in film.
I think the greatest tragedy of this film is Calvin itself. This life form seemingly has no weaknesses at all. Even in Alien, there was this overlying sense of hope that the Xenomorph could be beaten. In Life, we are presented with the unbeatable. The unstoppable force, and while this can sometimes translate well in literature and comic books, it does not make for an entertaining watch.
Final score 6/10. It's watchable. it has a few moments. But you are likely to forget it exists within hours of watching it.