Flawed, but a treat for horror fans

Rating: 8/10 (17 October 2019)

I read many of the comments on this film and have to agree with some of the criticism: its structure is basic and its characters are pretty shallow, there's even one of them I still don't know what he's doing aboard the ISS after several viewings.
That said, it didn't bother me as much as other viewers because as a horror fan, I tend to leave some of those defects aside, and Life is nothing more than big budget horror movie in a sci-fi setting.
And as in many horror movies, most notably slashers, the characters do dumb things and their situation keeps getting worse and worse.
It's part of the game, it lets us imagine how better we would have dealt with this situation and makes us want to shout at the screen: "no, don't go there you idiot", "there's something behind you!", etc. just like kids watching a clown show.
Now what I really like about this movie is that it states its rules in a rather subtle way towards the beginning: the creature doesn't kill blindly, it always does it for the same reason, which only becomes clear at the very end.
But when it wants to kill, it is relentless and doesn't show any mercy.
The deaths in this movie are brutal and often memorable, you really get to feel how scary dealing with such a clever monster could be, which alone makes the movie worth a watch in my opinion.
On top of that, it's beautifully shot and has top notch effects, especially those related to the absence of gravity, which are also very well used throughout the film. Finally, the "monster" doesn't pale in comparison to its otherworldly predecessors, it's main feature being its intelligence as I said (it's a lot smarter than a xenomorph for example) and we get to see a bit of its lifecycle.
And of course, there's the surprise ending that has been much discussed, for which I add a point to my rating.