a film with good craftsmanship and acting all around. that said...

Rating: 6/10 (24 March 2017)

Life works like an efficient and competent B movie with some A-movie window dressing and talent up until it's final minute. And while I'm sure people will immediately jump to the Alien comparisons due to the trailer, I thought of a lot of different sci-fi movies that I'm sure the writers behind Zombieland (a much better take-off, and funnier, than this film by a mile), so in its first moments it calls to mind 2001, and some of the camaraderie of the people on the ship and their functions as various scientists and engineers and, well, Ryan Reynolds, was like Event Horizon at its most entertaining, and I'm sure some Gravity worked its way into the script as well (the outside space scenes, and how the ship looks and moves, feels very much in tune with filmmakers who saw that movie and, naturally, it takes some time to translate that phenomenon to a 'take' on that).
Now, this is for those who have seen the film (though I'll keep it spoiler free): I didn't like the ending, or I should say the final minute and what may be a denouement (the climax itself is thrilling and for a moment I thought Sony might make up for the wasted potential of their last sci-fi release, Passengers). It's not the spirit of it in and of itself, it's the execution of certain details of where actors are at a particular moment. It felt like it was a Shyamalanian-ish "ooh, twist, gotcha", only it leaves things as... I dunno. Empty, actually, and that the studio asked for two endings and tested both, and this one somehow wound up not testing *as* bad, so they went with this. It just left me feeling 'ugh' - though having "Spirit in the Sky" over the end credits feels like an extra cheeky kick in the groin.
The rest of the movie's alright as a straight-forward, very science-filled piece of science/action fiction (until it isn't, which is... half an hour in) with a capable and spot-on cast. Actually, because of the cast alone (especially Gyllenhaal,n Bakare as Hugh the scientist that sets off nearly all of what's to come in the film, and Rebecca Ferguson who gets more emotionally intense in the last reel) and that the movie *is* well-paced, I'll bump up its rating a tad. But it could have been more than it was.