Critic Reviews

If you lower your sights a few pegs and go in looking for a solid, tight B-movie that builds right until the final shot, there’s a lot to like.

It’s a sleek and effective thriller, often scary and usually visually impressive. But too often, its reasons for doing absolutely anything amount to “because this is the way Alien did it.”

Movies today are too long and overstuffed; Life is lean, mean, and terrifying. It doesn’t have much to say beyond “hold up, maybe we shouldn’t poke around uncharted terrain so much,” but with actors this committed, set pieces this exciting, and direction this confident, it doesn’t really matter.

Life is a B movie on an A budget, an old-fashioned creature feature that delivers its cheap thrills expensively.

Life has cool effects, real suspense and a sweet twist. It ain’t rocket science, but it does what it does well — even, one might say, with a kind of genius.

Life is not a great film, but it has its thrills.

Just don’t expect this to be a light, escapist excursion into outer space. Even by sci-fi/horror standards, this is dark, gruesome, intense stuff.

Life’s a thrill when it’s smart, but it’s even more exciting when the characters are dumb — which is ultimately a paradox the film wears proudly, to the possible extinction of the human race.

This is an effective and unsettling piece of filmmaking, partly because Gyllenhaal has one of the most sympathetic faces in movies today--it's haunted and haunting.

Life never reaches greatness, but it’s solidly good, from its earned scares to a spot-on ending. (Don’t let anyone ruin it for you.) The film’s tight spaces and layered audio will work best on the big screen; see it with someone whose wrist you can grab.