Life
Entry updated 19 October 2026. Tagged: Film.
US film (2017). Columbia Pictures. Directed by Daniel Espinosa. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Cast includes Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhall, Ryan Reynolds and Hiroyuki Sanada. 104 minutes. Colour.
Astronauts living in the International Space Station receive a soil sample from Mars, retrieved by a Robot probe, that they will examine for evidence of extraterrestrial life. As studied by exobiologist Hugh Derry (Bakare) (see Xenobiology), it is found to contain one cell that quickly grows into a small organism given the name "Calvin", the result of an elementary school contest. But the creature, initially regarded as cute, quickly emerges as a dangerous menace as it escapes from its container and kills engineer Rory Adams (Reynolds). After Calvin exits the station, the crew members strive to keep it from reentering, but their efforts fail, and various struggles against the creature lead to the deaths of Russian commander Ekaterina Golovkina (Dihovichnaya) and engineer Sho Murakami (Sanada). Since the station is about to plummet to Earth because of their efforts to contain the creature, Russian cosmonauts arrive to prevent this from happening, but Calvin kills them. Finally, an escape pod containing medical officer David Jordan (Gyllenhall) reaches Earth, and when the hatch is opened, Calvin seems destined to emerge and endanger life on Earth.
Most viewers probably thought of Life as an imitation of Alien (1979), but it actually more closely follows the plot of three productions from the 1960s: "Specimen: Unknown" (1964), an episode of The Outer Limits (1964-1965), Mutiny in Outer Space (1965), and The Green Slime (1968). In all cases, a virulent space organism infests a space station, starts killing people, and threatens to spread to Earth and kill many more people. The novelty here is that Calvin seems a little more plausible than the Poison-emitting flowers, massive vines, and ambulatory creatures in the other three examples; and while the danger is eliminated in those efforts, this film offers a more modern, downbeat conclusion. Also, the all-American casts of the 1960s are replaced here by an international crew of American, British, and Japanese astronauts. And the film reflects changing attitudes toward Alien life: the astronauts of the 1960s were naturally inclined to think of their alien invaders as evil, but these crew members initially treat Calvin as a pet or plaything until it commits its first murder. However, while the 1960s aliens seem harmful to humans almost inadvertently, and might be benign in other circumstances, this film's alien is deliberately intent upon killing every being that it encounters, suggesting that those changing attitudes are naïve. The fact that no creature with such proclivities ever evolved on Earth, and appears unlikely to evolve anywhere else, is unimportant to filmmakers who find such adversaries ideal for stories involving constant action and violence. [GW]
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