Skip to footer

'Life' is glumly earnest

( R ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

'Life' stars Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal as members of a crew of astronauts and scientists who get picked off by a space creature. 

|
Alex Bailey/Columbia Pictures-Sony/AP
'Life' stars Ryan Reynolds.
  • By Peter Rainer

“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.) 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Life' is glumly earnest
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2017/0324/Life-is-glumly-earnest
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe