So, when I was a kid I always wanted to be an astronaut. Even though I was great at math and science I was lazy, so here I am just writing about a space movie. When I saw the preview for Life I just knew I had to see it. Now that I’ve seen this movie let me just say that I never, ever want to go to space. Ever.
Be warned, all you curious readers: I’m about to spoil this whole movie, beginning, middle, and end. I mean EVERYTHING.
The mission is to gather soil from Mars to study for signs of life. The lab is set up in the International Space Station. It is really cool how Hugh Derry, played by Ariyon Bakare, examines the Mars dirt for biological life. He adjusts the atmosphere in the contained area where the sample is and then the little cell-looking thing moves. Holy crap! They found life on Mars. Days go by and they continue to observe the little creature. There is even a live telecast in Times Square so that school kids can ask the astronauts questions about the “Martian”. The kids decide it should be named Calvin.Calvin grows and is so cute. I was like,”awe, not as cute as Groot, but so cute.”
Calvin continues to grow until one night the astronauts are startled out of their sleep because of an oxygen leak in the lab. Dr. Miranda North, played by Rebecca Ferguson, rips Derry a new one for not making sure the lab and all of its equipment is functioning at 100%. I should have known by how she overreacted that she knew something we didn’t. That the rest of the astronauts didn’t. After that Calvin is in a deep sleep and Derry decides that he will try to stimulate Calvin with a small electrical zap. In my mind I am thinking this is the equivalent of going to the basement in the dark by yourself.
The zap happens and then the shit starts going down. Calvin grasps Derry’s hand and DOES NOT let go. This tiny little creature is strong and smart. Smarter than the astronauts. He breaks the zappy thing. He cracks and squishes Derry’s hand and finally lets him go. He pulls his hand out of the glove and it looks like a gelatinous piece of meat. I had to look away. Ryan Reynold’s character, Rory Adams, unlocks the sealed lab, even though the others begged him to shut the door, he pulls Derry out and then the door shuts Adams in there. He tries to burn Calvin to death. That didn’t work. The next thing that happens isn’t for the faint of heart. The creature (I stopped calling it Calvin in my mind after this) attached itself to Adams and slithered and forced itself into his mouth. It is about the size of an octopus you would see at the fishmonger so it was quite a disgustingly awful thing to watch, until Adams starts coughing up blood, and since there is no gravity it is like the worst, disgusting blood spatter I have ever seen. It just hovered and swayed with Adam’s dead shell of a body. The creature ate Adams from the inside out.
We come to find the “sealed” lab isn’t so sealed and the damn thing gets out of the lab through an air vent. So, freaking out commences. David Jordan, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, tries to take care of Derry the best he can. Jordan is very shaken up. He has been on the space station over 400 days. He doesn’t seem to handle emotions very well, but who the hell would handle this experience well.
The astronauts move to a central location to try to send a signal to Earth for help. Of course the communication devices are down because that thing is just that damn smart. Ekaterina Golovkina, played by Olga Dihovichnaya, goes out on a space walk to try to repair the coms. While she is out there she bumps into the clear, fast growing bastard and he breaks her suit and she starts taking on water in her helmet. The astronauts watch as she drowns in her helmet.
A kind of relief washes over me because I think that damn thing is outside in space, for God’s sake, it can’t live. Well, it wouldn’t have if it hadn’t figured out it could get back in through the thrusters. I really hate this thing and my heart is racing. I put down my popcorn because my stomach was doing somersaults.
They devise a plan to starve it of oxygen so it will die. Little do they know that when they moved Derry in the sealed room the creature had attached itself to his leg under his suit. Lovely.
They make a run for it, and Dr. North and Jordan are separated from Sho Murakami, played by Hiroyuki Sanada. Murakami makes his way to his sleep chamber and the creature follows him. It cracks the glass, but cannot get to him. Derry flat lines and dies so Jordan and Dr. North decide to use Derry as bait to lure the bastard out. They set up a part of a tunnel and put his body there. Oxygen is there so he comes.
In the meantime, a shuttle appears and is going to dock right where the trap is. The shuttle damages the space station severely. Dr. North explains the shuttle has come to send them into deep space. That is the protocol. She knew all along, but told no one.
Murakami leaves his sleep chamber and heads, unbeknownst to him, straight for the creature. As damage happens the three remaining astronauts end up together hanging on for dear life because of shell damage while the creature is trying to insert itself in their mouths. Murakami falls into space and Dr. North and Jordan barely make it back into the sealed room they created.
The shuttle leaves and they quickly realize they are out of fuel, running out of oxygen and are basically fucked. Jordan decided he will lure the creature out with oxygen sticks and head to get away pod A. Dr. North will head to pod B. Jordan will die with that nasty, slimy creature as he leads the pod to deep space. Dr. North will return to Earth.
As the pods are disengaging from the space station Dr. North records a message in case she is burned up on reentry. The next scene is the pod reentering Earth’s atmosphere and landing in the water. A fishing boat goes to the pod and looks in the window. SON OF A BITCH. It is Jordan, still alive, covered up in nasty bastard slimy shit.
Then we see Dr. North screaming bloody murder spinning off in space with ‘System Failure’ all over her pod’s screens. Well, fuck. The scene then returns to Jordan and he is yelling at the fishermen to not open the door of the pod. They do and thank God the damn scene pans out.
This movie had me jumping and hiding my face. It was wonderful! I loved how the creature was a simple, mysterious thing but it scared the hell out of me. You know it will kill you. Crawl up in you. And then there is nothing left. The music was amazing and added to the scary factor. It’s one of those movies that you know bad shit is going to go down, but you enjoy the hell out of it anyway. I can’t wait to see it again.
I would love to hear what you guys think of the movie. I will be awake because I might never sleep again.
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