Life (2017 film)

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Life
Directed by	Daniel Espinosa
Written by	Rhett Reese Paul Wernick
Produced by	David Ellison Dana Goldberg Bonnie Curtis Julie Lynn
Starring	Jake Gyllenhaal Ryan Reynolds Rebecca Ferguson Hiroyuki Sanada Ariyon Bakare Olga Dihovichnaya
Cinematography	Seamus McGarvey
Edited by	Frances Parker Mary Jo Markey
Music by	Jon Ekstrand
Production company	Columbia Pictures Skydance Mockingbird Pictures
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Releasing
Release date	March 18, 2017 (2017-03-18) (SXSW) March 24, 2017 (2017-03-24) (United States)
Running time	104 minutes
Language	English
Country	United States
Budget	$58 million
Box office	$100.5 million

Life is a 2017 American science fiction horror film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and starring an ensemble cast consisting of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya. In the film, a six-member crew of the International Space Station uncovers the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. When members of the crew conduct their research, the rapidly evolving life-form proves to be far more intelligent than expected and terrifying.

The development of Life began in November 2015, when it was announced that Espinosa would direct a film set in space, with Wernick and Reese writing the screenplay. After the deal with Paramount Pictures was not confirmed, Sony Pictures signed on to handle the worldwide distribution rights and co-finance the film, with Skydance in March 2016. The casting call took place in January 2016, and filming took place in France, New York City and Vietnam between February and July. The visual effects were handled by DNEG, Industrial Light & Magic, NVIZIBLE, One of Us, Outpost VFX and Atomic Fiction.

The only co-production between Skydance Media and Sony Pictures, the film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 18, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on March 24, 2017. It received mostly positive reviews, with praise for its acting, visuals and screenplay, but was compared unfavorably with films like Alien (1979). The film grossed over $100 million worldwide against a $58 million budget.

Plot

In the near future, an uncrewed space probe returns from Mars to Earth orbit with soil samples potentially containing evidence of extraterrestrial life. The probe is intercepted by the International Space Station. From its samples, exobiologist Hugh Derry revives a dormant cell that quickly grows into a multi-celled organism that US schoolchildren name "Calvin". Hugh realizes that Calvin's cells can change their specialization, acting as muscle, neuron, and photosensory cells all at once.

While being provoked, Calvin becomes hostile, wrapping itself around Hugh's hand and crushing it. Calvin then escapes its enclosure and devours a lab rat, growing in size. Engineer Rory Adams rescues Hugh, but Calvin grabs onto his leg, prompting physician David Jordan to lock Rory in the lab. After Rory unsuccessfully attempts to destroy Calvin with a flame-throwing incinerator, Calvin enters his mouth, devouring his internal organs and killing him. After several minutes, Calvin emerges from Rory's mouth, larger than before, and escapes the lab through a fire-control vent.

The crew attempts to inform Earth of the situation, but the station's communication system overheats, cutting off contact with Earth. ISS commander Ekaterina "Kat" Golovkina performs a spacewalk to find and fix the problem, which turns out to be Calvin. Calvin attacks Kat and ruptures her spacesuit's coolant system. As her suit fills with coolant, Kat makes her way to the airlock. Despite David and Sho's encouragement to open the airlock and receive help from David, Kat sacrifices herself to keep Calvin outside of the station.

Calvin attempts to re-enter the station through its manoeuvring thrusters. The crew fire the thrusters to blast it away, but they drain so much fuel that it causes the ISS to enter a decaying orbit, where it will burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Pilot Sho Murakami suggests using the ISS's remaining fuel to get back into a safe orbit even though it will allow Calvin to re-enter. The crew seal themselves in one side of the station and prepare to vent the atmosphere from the other side to render Calvin dormant. Hugh spots Calvin while the crew is working but chooses not to report the creature. At some point, Calvin latches on to his leg and begins feeding off him before the crew finishes sealing off the section where Calvin is supposed to be contained. The crew discovers Calvin feeding from Hugh after he unexpectedly collapses. Calvin attacks the crew, forcing them to flee. Sho seals himself inside a sleeping pod, while Calvin tries to break inside. David and Quarantine Officer Miranda North use Hugh's corpse as bait to lure Calvin away and trap it.

Having received a distress call prior to the damage to the ISS communication system, Earth sends a Soyuz spacecraft to push the station into deep space. This is a fail-safe to protect Earth, but Sho believes this to be a rescue and boards the Soyuz. He is followed by Calvin, who kills the Soyuz crew. A docking breach occurs, and Sho sacrifices himself in an unsuccessful attempt to trap Calvin in the Soyuz. The Soyuz detaches and crashes into the ISS, causing the ISS's orbit to decay again.

The remaining survivors, David and Miranda, speculate that Calvin could survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, so they plan to lure Calvin into one of the ISS' two escape pods. Once inside, David will manually pilot the pod containing Calvin into deep space, thereby isolating it and enabling Miranda to return to Earth in the other pod. David leads Calvin into his pod and launches into space as Miranda launches her pod, and the two pods go in different directions. As Miranda's pod flies in one direction, she records a black box message to warn Earth of Calvin's threat. Subsequently, one pod is hit by debris, while David is attacked by Calvin while trying to pilot. Eventually, one of the two pods lands in the south Pacific Ocean and is found by Vietnamese fishermen, while the other pod flies away from Earth. What the Vietnamese fishermen find turns out to be David's pod. Meanwhile, Miranda's pod systems begin to fail as it flies uncontrollably into deep space. On Earth, one of the two fishermen manage to force open the pod's hatch door despite David's pleading warning not to, as other boats appear to be arriving at the scene of the pod.

Cast

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Dr. David Jordan, USA, ISS medical officer.
• Ryan Reynolds as Rory Adams, USA, ISS engineer.
• Rebecca Ferguson as Dr. Miranda North, UK, CDC quarantine officer.
• Hiroyuki Sanada as Sho Murakami, Japan, ISS systems engineer.
• Ariyon Bakare as Dr. Hugh Derry, UK, ISS exobiologist.
• Olga Dihovichnaya as Ekaterina "Kat" Golovkina, Russia, ISS Mission Commander.
• Naoko Mori as Kazumi, Sho Murakami's wife.

Production

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Composer Jon Ekstrand wrote his sixth score while working with Espinosa. Ekstrand aimed to create an "atonal-horror score with some melodic elements", mostly focused on orchestral music while opening with "more melodic and classical cinematic" tones to not give away the horror trappings early on. Espinosa specifically told Ekstrand to seek a sound reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann, with some influence from György Ligeti to reference the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Release

Life was released by Columbia Pictures on March 24, 2017, after being moved up from its previously announced release date of May 26, 2017, to avoid competition with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Alien: Covenant, the latter of which had moved up its release date from August 4, 2017 to May 19, 2017. Life had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 18, 2017.

Marketing

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Reception

Box office

Life grossed $30.2 million in the United States and Canada and $70.3 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $100.5 million, against a production budget of $58 million.

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Critical response

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Accolades

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See also

• List of American films of 2017
• List of films featuring extraterrestrials
• List of films featuring space stations
• List of science fiction horror films

External links

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