Life (2017)

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Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds are among the scientists on the International Space Station who discover a tiny, peculiar life form in a piece of debris from Mars. When the life form cripples a colleague and starts to grow, the station’s crew begins to worry. Then the body count begins.

Life is another in a long line of ‘Ten Little Indian’ creature features, all of which fall under the long and well-respected shadow of Ridley Scott’s Alien. But if you can forgive a lack of originality, you might find that Life still satisfies as a moderately entertaining monster movie. The star power in the cast is perhaps mis-spent, but everyone is serviceable to the material. The creature pales in comparison to HR Giger’s now-classic ‘xenomorph’, both in its appearance and its behavior, but director Daniel Espinosa mines a bit of tension out of its relentless hunt for victims. A few of the death scenes are memorable, even if — again — they feel like rehashed scenes from Alien.