'Life' is glumly earnest

“Life” is pretty lifeless. Set inside the orbiting International Space Station, this “Alien” knockoff, haphazardly directed by Daniel Espinosa, features a motley crew of astronauts and scientists, played by, among others, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds, who get picked off one by one by the resident gross-out space creature – a single-cell organism culled from a Mars soil sample that inexorably morphs into something resembling an icky manta ray.

Given the fact that “Life” was co-written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who co-wrote the wacked-out “Zombieland” and “Deadpool,” the film’s glum earnestness is doubly disappointing. Not much is even made of the fact that the creature is nicknamed Calvin. Any movie that showcases a villain named Calvin is in trouble. Grade: C- (Rated R for language throughout, some sci-fi violence, and terror.)