Is Life set to be just another 2001/Alien rip-off? | Little White Lies

Trailers

Is Life set to be just anoth­er 2001/​Alien rip-off?

31 Oct 2016

Words by Lara C Cory

Jake Gyl­len­haal and Ryan Reynolds chart famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry in this drab-look­ing space thriller.

With the pos­si­ble excep­tion of hor­ror, sci-fi is the most aggres­sive­ly self-can­ni­bal­is­ing film genre in exis­tence. Just take a look at the first offi­cial trail­er for Life, about an Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion crew who dis­cov­er organ­ic extrater­res­tri­al mat­ter on the sur­face of Mars. At first glance it almost looks like a rip-off of var­i­ous deep-space sci­ence fic­tion touch­stones. On clos­er inspec­tion, how­ev­er, it looks exact­ly like a rip-off of var­i­ous deep-space sci­ence fic­tion touch­stones, name­ly 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and Event Hori­zon (we’ll end it there, but we could go on…).

Giv­en how many films have pre­vi­ous­ly struck a chord by explor­ing the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences of dis­cov­er­ing alien life in out­er space, it’s no sur­prise to see this one fol­low suit. But wouldn’t it be refresh­ing to see a slight­ly more orig­i­nal take on the sub­ject? Alas, it seems that direc­tor Daniel Espinosa, along with writ­ers Rhett Reese and Paul Wer­nick, has no such inten­tion. Much will depend on the film’s A‑list cast bring­ing their A‑game, with Jake Gyl­len­haal, Ryan Reynolds and Rebec­ca Fer­gu­son the ones mak­ing this land­mark dis­cov­ery in human his­to­ry this time around. Take a look for your­self and have your say @LWLies

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Life is sched­uled for release May 2017.

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