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Strife on Mars

In 1979, Ridley Scott's "Alien" burst onto the scene, terrifying unsuspecting audiences with a deceptively simple story about the crew of a long-haul commercial spacecraft who answer a distress beacon from an abandoned planet. They land, explore a derelict spaceship, and aren't initially aware as they resume the voyage home that they've unwittingly brought along an alien passenger. Said alien turns out to be a super-aggressive predator who stalks the ship, ruthlessly picking off victims one by one. The remaining crew member fights valiantly, wanting desperately to prevent the alien from making it back to earth and wreaking havoc.

"Alien's" story is pretty straightforward - it's been described as "a haunted house in space" - but its execution is inspired. What many traumatized viewers remember years later are the mindbending images of the alien environs explored by the nervous crew in the film's early chapters, and of course the alien itself. Swiss surrealist HR Giger contributed the alien images based on recurring themes in his own work, and the resulting creature is skeletal and reptilian, all teeth and aggression and utterly inhuman. There's nothing relatable about it, but it inspires endless curiosity as well as instinctual fear: it's the ultimate "other".

"Life", the new offering from director Daniel Espinosa ("Safe House"), is also about humans encountering the alien "other", and this is a film that's definitely aware of its roots. In fact, while "Life" carries on the genre tradition in fine fashion, viewers may occasionally feel that they are watching a compilation reel; call it "greatest hits of sci-horror."

It's easy to pick out the similarities to "Alien" in this story of a science team on an international space station eagerly harvesting research samples from an unmanned mission to Mars. They install said samples in their onboard lab and watch as a single cell quickly develops into an organism that responds to outside activity and engenders wild hope and excitement of discovery. But a misstep by the team's lead scientist (Ariyon Bakare, "Jupiter Ascending") goads the amorphous creature into a shockingly well-orchestrated attack, and the crew quickly becomes prey on their own space station.

"Life" follows the blueprints laid out by both "Alien" and "Aliens" as the crew takes turns alternately pursuing the escaped creature (improbably named "Calvin" by NYC schoolchildren back on Earth) with various plans for its destruction, and fleeing to all ends of the station in a desperate bid for survival. Encounters with the creature are the stuff of phobic nightmares - think choking, drowning, and being trapped in small spaces - and each possible solution seems more desperate than the last.

As is often the case with this sort of venture, there's not much time for character development. The crew is recognizable mostly by function and primary motivation, all of which are helpfully spelled out in occasionally-clunky expositional dialogue. Standouts include aforementioned lead scientist Hugh, who's in orbit because the lack of gravity lets him leave behind a lifetime spent in a wheelchair, and disillusioned veteran David (Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nocturnal Animals"), who's spent a record-breaking amount of time at the station in a willful, wistful withdrawal from life on earth: "I can't stand what we do to each other down there."

During breaks from the horror, "Life" provides what seems a pretty accurate and effective portrayal of life on an orbiting research station. Crew members float around unimpeded by gravity, and there's no attempt to adhere to a false horizon; we're often reminded based on shifts in perspective that in space, up and down are relative concepts. And, watching characters zip around in the station's tubular corridors proves to be a surprisingly immersive experience - "Life" does a great job of conveying what it must be like to function in a weightless environment.

It's also frighteningly effective at showing just how precarious life in space can be for humans, and how quickly and completely things can go terribly, terribly wrong. Despite oft-mentioned protocols and a surfeit of sealed doors and thick glass, the crew is at the mercy of their suddenly-aggressive alien guest with a speed that's breathtaking. This depiction is one of the high points of the film and it's beautifully directed to ratchet up the tension as the rest of the crew, trapped helplessly outside the lab by strict security procedures, watches lone scientist Hugh grappling with the alien in a situation that initially seems merely peculiar and quickly turns deadly.

About that alien: in a film that makes so many bold visual choices - there's a gorgeous view of a corona of light highlighting the earth's curvature as the planet rotates, and a neat outside shot showing the immensity of the space station that cuts to a close up of the science team doing precision work on a microscopic level with their newly-won Martian samples - the creature itself isn't particularly impressive. "Calvin" is most often pictured as a menacing blob boomeranging back and forth across surfaces or slingshotting down corridors, but there's not much here that's eye-catching.

The script goes out of its way to define this alien by function rather than form. Perhaps the film's sketched-in "Calvin" was yet another homage to "Alien": an acknowledgement that when it comes to creature design, there's no sense trying to outdo those iconic Giger creations.

"Life" offers lots of eye candy for sci-fi fans, and anyone who's intrigued by strong production design will find much to admire here. On the horror side, the scares are solid, and Mr. Espinosa wisely relies on the strength of the story for those payoffs rather than going for the easy and obvious body gross-out moments. "Life" isn't long on originality, but it will make for a good night out if you're in search of something alien, worthy of watching on the big screen.