ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

Judging by the trailer, this one is a bit like Alien, only without face hugging and chest busting.

Looks good to me! Here's what IMDB says about.
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Six astronauts aboard the space station study a sample collected from Mars that could provide evidence for extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet. The crew determines that the sample contains a large, single-celled organism - the first example of life beyond Earth. But..things aren't always what they seem. As the crew begins to conduct research, and their methods end up having unintended consequences, the life form proves more intelligent than anyone ever expected.
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_____________________ Life (2017) - trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Wikipedia says this about how the critics reacted to this movie. I haven't seen it yet, so I've got no personal comments yet. But it's one my Netflix list.
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On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 197 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Life is just thrilling, well-acted, and capably filmed enough to overcome an overall inability to add new wrinkles to the trapped-in-space genre."

On Metacritic, the film has a score of 54 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore on opening night gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.

Space policy experts positively noted the film's warning about extraterrestrial contact.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[bulldogtrekker]

I have this Bluray from the library, but I haven't seen it yet. I will report back after I see it.

[bulldogtrekker]

SPOILER

I was very disappointed in Life. Maybe I was not in the proper mood to watch it. The crew on the ISS could not get a break and

<< SPOILER >> << SPOILER >> << SPOILER >>

the alien won.


Edited to make the spoiler less of a spoiler.

[Bud Brewster]

I finally saw this one recently, and I enjoyed it much more than BDT did. It was exciting and scary. The weightless effects were flawless. The alien evolved from a one-celled life form to a full-fledged monster in a very convincing way.





I hadn't read Bulldogtrekker's spoiler comment, but I saw the shocking ending coming about 60 seconds before it was revealed.

I think it's a shame that the public and the critics didn't respond positively to this film, because the ending was a perfect setup for a slam-bang sequel about an Martian invasion that starts with a one-cell creature that we brought back from Mars, after which it grows into an horde of huge, intelligent, unstoppable monsters that battle every army of the world!

A Martian invasion . . . without spacecraft in which they arrive, without an invasion plan the Martians have for conquest, and without high-tech Martian weapons.

A new kind of invasion. Cool.

Then again, the creature is so smart by the end of Life, we could actually see it begin to create weapons during the sequel, causing the movie go from a fighting-the-monsters story to a fighting-the-advanced aliens story!

I think that would be one hell of a good movie!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[The Spike]

It's life, Jim, but actually as we know it.

Life is an average sci-fi picture, one that gets by on effects and general sci-fi values. Plot is utterly familiar. OK! It's always going to be unfair to judge a film of this type by the bar raiser that was Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), but really the familiarity on show here is tantamount to being naughty.

A group of space explorers discover an alien life form and after the initial wonderment and excitement subsides, things quickly turn bad, with the potential for threat to mankind as we know it...

That's pretty much it, really, the cast go through the motions of being in a play that is basically the characters being picked off by an alien manta ray thingy. Standard formula takes a grip of the viewer, who will be killed? who is next? will anyone survive? and etc. The makers - just to continue the unadventurous theme - throw in a Deep Blue Sea moment, while Hiroyuki Sanada has wandered in off of Sunshine's Icarrus II to feature aboard the International Space Station. The ending has and will infuriate many, but personally I liked it, very much from The Twilight Zone dimension, to which it lifts the piece just above averageville.

Not recommended with any conviction, especially to sci-fi fans stung by serious science defects and logic holes, while casual sci-fiers would be better off with the brilliance of Alien or something more fun packed and unpretentious like Leviathan (1989). But as it is it's a decent enough time waster. 6/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Maurice]

[Bud Brewster]

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You saw the word —

SPOILER

— but you read the three-sentence post anyway. You could easily have stopped after reading "I was very disappointed in Life." He even said (spoiler) again before he revealed the ending!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Maurice]

[Bud Brewster]

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Wow, that's mighty impressive. I wish I could do that.

However, it's actually three sentences, and Bulldogtrekker did post a two warnings, so it's not his fault. (Lighten up, Brainiac.)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Idealy there should have been more space below the word "Spoiler".

But the movie has been out for over six months, so it's not really news. Besides, it is a point that must be made in any intelligent discusion of the film.

Now, just so long as no one tells me the ending of SIXTH SENSE before I get to see it..........

[orzel-w]

Before a civil (or uncivil) war breaks out, it may be beneficial to prescribe a more foolproof format for spoilers. Here's my suggestion.

<< SPOILER >> << SPOILER >> << SPOILER >>

Highlight text below or quote this post to read spoiler:
[Place spoiler here in white or #dee3e7 text, depending on color of background.]
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Gord Green]

Good idea Orzel !!!!

I try not to post spoilers, but if neccessary I'll follow your advise!

And you're right Maurice, I usually read in "blocks" too.

[bulldogtrekker]

I have edited my spoiler to make it much harder to read.

[Bud Brewster]

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Well, BDT, you certainly succeeded. The spoiler is now so small it's completely unreadable. I'm sure Maurice won't object to a microscopic spoiler.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)