Tense thriller reminiscent of Alien

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2017)

As faithful readers of the BankofMarquis Movie Reviews know, I am a sucker for "Ten Little Indians" style monster flicks. You know...the kind of flick where a finite group of people are stranded in an isolated location and a monster (or an Alien) picks them off one by one until just one (or two) are left to battle the monster/Alien. I even put out a TOP TEN list of these flicks a few years ago.
LIFE, the new movie from Swedish Director Daniel Espinso (Safe House, Child 44), follows very nicely in the footsteps of these films as it tells the story of 6 Astronauts on an International Space Station orbiting the Earth that encounter an Alien Life Form that will threaten the very existence of life on Earth unless they can figure out a way to stop them.
This film could have been another "pleasant enough for a rainy, grey Saturday afternoon sort of thing, but Espinosa did something interesting here, he cast some VERY strong actors in this movie and their work sets this standard monster movie just a slight notch above others in this genre.
Jake Gylenhaal has become a "mark of quality" actor for me. He just doesn't pick bad movies to be in and he doesn't give a bad performance. Such is the case here. His Dr. David Gordon is fraught with what Gylenhall usually brings to the table, quiet, confident quirkiness that is tinged with just an edge of uncertainty. Add to this the "charisma a go-go" of Ryan Reynolds and the steady sincerity of Rebecca Ferguson and the core of this film is strong indeed. Add to this an International cast of Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dihovichnaya and Ariyon Bakare and we have one of the strongest groups of "cannon fodder" that we have seen in a long, long time.
But make no mistake, these films rise and fall on the Monster/Alien that is attacking and in Life, they have a darn good one. Named "Calvin" this alien (like the one in ALIEN) starts small and continues to grow throughout the film to become a formidable, seemingly indestructible force.
The effects work well enough (though you can tell, at times, that the Astronauts aren't floating but, rather, being pulled on wires) and I wish I could have told the Director to be more original in his ending, but all-in-all I was very entertained.
I read somewhere that this film is being called the third ALIEN film. I don't think so - that would be John Carpenter's THE THING. But, if you wish to call LIFE the 4th Alien film, I would be fine with that.
And so will you.
Letter Grade: Solid B
7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)