Life (2017)

17 Monday Apr 2017

Tags

Calvin, Daniel Espinosa, Drama, International Space Station, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mars, Rebecca Ferguson, Review, Ryan Reynolds, Sci-fi, Thriller

D: Daniel Espinosa / 104m

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya

It’s a good day on the International Space Station (ISS). A probe that has been collecting soil samples from the Mars surface is on its way back and is about to be intercepted by the team on board the ISS. The hope is that the soil samples will contain evidence of extraterrestrial life. The team – medical officer Dr David Jordan (Gyllenhaal), quarantine officer Dr Miranda North (Ferguson), systems engineer Rory “Roy” Adams (Reynolds), ISS pilot Sho Murakami (Sanada), biologist Hugh Derry (Bakare), and ISS commander Ekaterina Golovkina (Dihovichnaya) – are all excited at the prospect. They’re further excited when they discover a dormant cell in amongst the samples. Derry manages to revive it, and it’s not long before it grows into a multi-celled organism. Back on Earth, the news is received with even greater excitement, and the organism is given the name Calvin.

However, Calvin enters another period of dormancy. Derry elects to use a low-level electric shock to help re-stimulate it, but this approach has an unexpected result: Calvin attaches itself to Derry’s hand and begins to crush it. Derry manages to free himself, and while Calvin devours a lab rat, Adams rushes in to the quarantine area to rescue him. Derry gets out but Adams isn’t so lucky: Calvin attaches itself to his leg, leaving Jordan no option but to keep them both locked inside the quarantine area. Adams does his best to kill Calvin but the creature escapes into the vents. As it continues to grow it causes further problems for the crew, leading them to realise that it’s far more intelligent than they could ever have expected.

With their communication with Earth cut off, and an attempt to send Calvin into deep space failing, the ISS enters a decaying orbit, one that will see it burn up on re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere. Certain that Calvin would survive such an event, the crew have to come up with a plan that will see Calvin stopped from reaching Earth’s surface, while also ensuring their own safety, but further events dictate that this won’t be as easy as they’d hoped, and soon time is running out for everyone – both on the ISS and on Earth…

The first thing that anyone will tell you about Life is that it’s so obviously an Alien (1979) rip-off (and that’s supposed to make it a bad thing). And while it does share certain elements with that movie, it’s also a little unfair to damn the whole movie with such faint praise. With Ridley Scott poaching his own genre classic in Prometheus (2012), and no doubt the upcoming Alien: Covenant (2017) as well, accusing Life of being a rip-off isn’t exactly fair criticism. And if imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, then Life has taken a pretty good template from which to tell its story. What screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have done is taken the bare bones of the Alien premise, and from that they’ve created an intense, thrill-ride of a movie that – if it has a real problem – only falls short when it focuses on the characters.

One aspect where the movie doesn’t emulate Alien is in the speed with which it puts the ISS crew in danger. There’s no leisurely build-up, no time to get to know anyone, and as a result, no one to care about. The characters express themselves solely through their roles on board the ISS, and when they do stop to express any philosophical or moral implications to the situation they’ve found themselves in, it all feels trite and under-developed. It’s all a bit Screenwriting 101: give the characters an inner life for the audience to connect with. But these interludes only serve to stall the movie and stop it from what it does best, which is ramp up the tension, exert as much pressure on the crew as possible, and reduce the odds of anyone surviving the longer the movie progresses.

To this end, director Daniel Espinosa and his editors, Mary Jo Markey and Frances Parker, have fashioned a series of encounters and showdowns between Calvin and the ISS crew that equate to good old-fashioned, edge-of-your-seat sequences designed to have audiences holding their breath as they wait to see what’s going to happen next. Life is like a rollercoaster ride, but an often grim, horrific rollercoaster ride, one that doesn’t let up (except for those pesky dialogue scenes), and which isn’t afraid to be nasty when it wants to be. Like the Nostromo before it, the ISS is a claustrophobic, up-is-down environment where Calvin could strike at any time. Espinosa lets the camera – operated with his usual aplomb by Seamus McGarvey – roam the corridors and remote areas of the ISS with an eerie stealth, emulating Calvin’s point of view or just setting up a scare that may or may not happen (you’ll never be too sure).

With the majority of the movie given over to these sequences, Life holds the attention and plays out its simple storyline with a great deal of confidence and a gripping visual style to it. The cast, however, are hampered by the script’s need for their characters to be introspective from time to time – too often, actually – and when they’re not debating whether Calvin should be feared or admired or both, they’re action figures floating around the ISS trying to survive. Gyllenhaal has a back-story that involves wanting to be completely alone, and which gives you a clue as to the eventual resolution, but it doesn’t resonate enough to feel important, just contrived. Ferguson is the tough decision-maker who won’t feel pity or remorse for killing another living creature, even if it is just trying to survive on its own terms, while Reynolds adds yet another semi-anarchic risk-taker to his resumé, a role he does well but which he could probably do in his sleep by now. Sanada and Bakare have their moments, and both actors are well-cast in their roles, bringing a much-needed sincerity to characters who could have been entirely forgettable. Which is almost the sad fate of Dihovichnaya, except that her encounter with Calvin is one of the movie’s more impressive set ups.

Fans of serious science fiction will find lots to annoy them, and though there are many occasions where disbelief is suspended too easily for the movie’s own good, Life isn’t going to be regarded as a modern classic like its genre forbear, but in terms of what it sets out to do – that is, entertain an audience – it succeeds for the most part, and its cheesy, forehead-slapping conclusion aside, is a lot more effective than most people will give it credit for. This isn’t a movie that will change your life, nor will it prompt anyone to become an astronaut and work on the ISS, but it is a solid piece of sci-fi entertainment, and in Calvin it has an alien life form that is one of the most well-conceived creatures ever seen on our screens; and it’s eerily beautiful too.

Rating: 7/10 – boasting superb production design and a vivid sense of impending doom, Life isn’t entirely successful, but it does more than enough to justify its existence (Alien clone or not); a popcorn movie for anyone seeking an undemanding hour and three quarters to kill, it’s unashamedly populist moviemaking and none the worse for being so.

Child 44 (2015)

04 Monday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Daniel Espinosa, Drama, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Leo Demidov, Literary adaptation, Moscow, Murder, Noomi Rapace, Review, Rostov, Serial killer, Soviet Union, Thriller, Tom Hardy, Tom Rob Smith

D: Daniel Espinosa / 137m

Cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Fares Fares, Vincent Cassel, Jason Clarke, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Spruell, Charles Dance

In post-war Soviet Russia, Leo Demidov (Hardy) is a respected officer in the Secret Police. Along with wartime comrades Vasili Nikitin (Kinnaman) and Alexei Andreyev (Fares) he investigates crimes against the state. When a suspect, Anatoly Brodsky (Clarke) goes on the run, their pursuit takes them to a farm where Brodsky has taken refuge. Against Leo’s wishes, Vasili kills the farmer’s wife and his young son; this drives a wedge between the two men.

A short while later, Andreyev’s young son is found dead by some railroad tracks. Though it’s clear that he has been murdered, thanks to Stalin’s edict that there shall be “no murder in paradise”, Leo is commanded by his superior, Major Kuzmin (Cassel), to tell Andreyev that the death was accidental. The idea doesn’t sit well with Leo but he goes ahead with it. When another child is murdered, Leo learns that there have been even more, similar cases. At the same time, he is tasked with investigating another suspected enemy of the state: his wife, Raisa (Rapace). She works in a school, and is friendly with one of the teachers, Ivan Sukov (Kaas). When his investigation reveals nothing incriminating about Raisa, his report is used as an excuse to strip Leo of his job and his home.

Leo is sent to Rostov to work under the command of General Mikhail Nesterov (Oldman). There, the discovery of another child’s body leads Leo to believe that the killer is responsible for over forty murders and is using the railway line between Rostov and Moscow as a means of hiding his crimes. Convincing Nesterov of his theory, Leo, aided by Raisa, returns to Moscow to seek help from Andreyev and gain access to files that will provide further information. But Vasili, who has been promoted to Leo’s old post, learns of his being in Moscow and tries to track him down and arrest him. Leo and Raisa manage to get out of Moscow and make their way back to Rostov. Now knowing that this is where the killer lives and works, Leo tries to find him on his own, but he has to work completely outside the law to do so.

Based on the novel by Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 looks, on the surface, to be the kind of quality literary adaptation that offers outstanding performances, first-rate direction, a gripping script, and all of it culminating in a rewarding cinematic experience. Alas, this isn’t that kind of movie.

Instead, Child 44 is one of the most lethargic, dullest thrillers in recent years. It’s hard to say just what is right about the movie, cloaked as it is in a thick layer of cod-Russian accents and the kind of amateur thesping expected from a movie with a much smaller budget.

That such a talented cast appears so ill-at-ease is thanks largely to a script by Richard Price that leaves them high and dry in terms of conviction, and rarely links two scenes with any sense that they’re connected. The movie opens with two scenes that show Leo and Vasili growing up and during the war. Anyone who’s read the novel will know the importance of this, but thanks to Price it has as much relevance later on as its clichéd outcome requires (which isn’t much). There are other moments and aspects of the novel that are included and then ignored, such as Raisa’s initial fear of Leo when they first met, and these go some way to making the movie feel uncoordinated and ill-considered.

And the movie feels rushed once Leo has to look into Raisa’s activities, as if the strain of adapting so much wieldy material became too much and Price had to jettison any subtlety in favour of just ploughing ahead with the thriller side of things. The end result is a movie that plods along avoiding any attempt to re-engage with its audience. As such, it becomes a chore, and the average viewer will be regretting the lengthy running time.

As mentioned above, the cast can do little with what they’re given. Hardy – usually a reliably hard-working actor – here fails to get to grips with the character of Leo, and gives a drab, uninspired performance that runs out of steam before even a quarter of the movie is over. Raoace, who really should be picking her roles with more perspicacity, is left on the sidelines too much and only ever registers when taking part in a fight scene. Oldman appears halfway through, has a handful of scenes and then disappears until the end; Kinnaman plays Vasili as a one-note sociopath (and looks increasingly like a young Keith Carradine); and Considine is saddled with the role of the killer, but never looks comfortable when trying to make him seem pitiable.

Perhaps it’s as much Espinosa’s fault as the script’s, as the director never seems to have s firm grip on the material, and shoots several scenes with a peculiarly uninvolved approach that makes them seem as if they’ve been included for the sake of it. Under his wing, the movie lacks any real thrills, and the race to track down the killer is hampered by too many longeuers to be entirely effective. And when you have a cast of this quality, not getting the best out of them is practically criminal.

Rating: 4/10 – with its superficial recreation of Soviet Russia, and cruelly dispassionate approach to the material, Child 44 never convinces; when a movie adaptation is this disappointing it’s a sure sign that everyone was having a very long off day.