Life * * * *

It's coming!, Run! run! I mean, float!, float!

Most reviews of Life have called it a bit of an Alien rip-off, and I'm afraid I have to agree.  I mean, it’s just so "in your face!" (pun intended).

Maybe cinema is going the same way as modern music, where originality is measured by what you can dig out the archive bin rather than what you can create.

Or maybe this is a knowing homage to the 1950’s B monster movies where they ripped each other off continually.  A good scare was more important than originality.

Though on the Saturday showing I went to no one was complaining. The cinema was full of young people, with screaming girls clutching their boyfriends arm (and vice versa). Hey, here’s a thought more frightening than the movie  - maybe they were all too young to remember Alien.

But If you can forgive it’s shameless lack of originality, Life is a lot of fun.

This time, it’s closer to home. It is set on a space station orbiting Earth.  The Space Station has received a soil sample from Mars, which the Space Station scientist pokes about with in his lab... "Add a bit of this, add a bit of that and  - Wow!, there is some microscopic life in there, and it's growing". Pretty soon you don’t need a microscope to see it.
No sir!   

Then it gets out. A powerful and relentless predator. The ever diminishing crew can't return to earth - not with this thing on board.

The Space Station is beautifully convincing, the non gravity situation is never compromised. They can only float about.  Spilt blood doesn’t drip. It floats about in hundreds of beads.

The acting is pretty good for the limited requirements of a screamer.  The pacing is brilliant, and the final twist leaves you with a horrifying realisation.

Despite its hopeless indebtedness, Life is a roller coaster that does it’s job well.  At 100 minutes it is very efficient and to be honest I really enjoyed it.