Space-age Frankenstein story

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2019)

Man's curiosity -- his greatest attribute or his worst flaw?
This film tackles the dangers of pushing scientific exploration to its limit.
Scientists aboard the International Space Station accept a sample of soil from Mars and set about creating a medium in which a single-celled organism could spring to life. Back on Earth, humans' special brand of anthropomorphism prompts a school kids' contest in which the dormant creature is dubbed Calvin.
"C'mon, Calvin, wake up!" an ISS scientist urges. He administers an electric shock of some sort, which the miniscule being interprets as an act of hostility.
And thus begins, yes, our home planet's very demise.
This exceedingly grim but interesting and at times exciting film features a monster that looks like an inexorably growing, transparent squid. But the creature definitely manages to scare.
The performances here are broadly sketched but manage to satisfy. And the space crew's slimy nemesis makes a certain amount of sense as we watch it exploit the humans' vulnerabilities -- from a scientist's palsied leg to the astronauts' selfless tendency to take risks to help one another.
The film ends particularly effectively, once an escape pod has landed back on Earth, presumably in some remote expanse of the Pacific. The film challenges us to ask why we do what we do. Maybe we can. But SHOULD we?
The movie ends aptly with the strains of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky," which, I read on Wikipedia, has been cited as the second-most-requested song to be played at memorial services.
Will man's quest for knowledge become his funeral dirge? This film may leave you wondering.