Review: Life

Year: 2017

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Screenplay:Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick 

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds. 

Synopsis is here:

Daniel Espinosa’s mainstream cinematic entries could perhaps be a good definition of what the youths call “basic”. They are films which have just enough to elevate them above mere “wallpaper” movies; films which are on in the background merely to provide environmental decoration (i.e: it’s on because it’s on). However, they do very little to become films that do anything distinctive. Espinosa’s Northern American features are good at reminding you of more insightful films with bigger impacts, but as a film of themselves, provide little more than a non-committal shrug. In watching Life, we realise that little of this has changed, but it’s the best of a middling bunch.

Life is little more than a well-financed borrowing of Alien, with a sprinkling of other recent, more effective Sci-Fi fare (Sunshine, Gravity). It pilfers and re-arranges enough to become a relatively compact and enjoyable ride, yet like many imitators, the film itself doesn’t include the ingredients that made previous films so memorable. The angst which fills Sunshine (2007) is non-existent here. The deep emotional current that runs through Gravity (2013) can’t be found in any of Life’s corners. Don’t expect the stillness and social dynamics that punctuate Alien, will not be seen. The fat is more than trimmed off the meat here. Don’t expect any extra weight. The problem is that it’s the fat, which cooks the meat and gives it flavour. Ask any cook worth their salt. What we get here is something well done.

Espinosa is all too happy to show off that all the tips and tricks we saw in other sci-fi movies are all still very fun to watch. Ogle at Seamus McGarvey’s fluid cinematography. Marvel at the fact that, for the most part, no one steps their feet on solid ground. You may have seen this elsewhere, but it’s still impressive to watch. It will no doubt be a nice screensaver for a fancy widescreen somewhere. All the while, the film is compressed into a tight package. It zips along to its most effective moments and never dilly dallies. Possibly because it knows it hasn’t got too much junk in the trunk, but hey, at least the film’s tensest moment plays out just like it did in the trailer seen in front of so many other films. 

Believe me when I say, if you’ve seen said trailer, you’ve seen the best moment of the film.

Therefore the other films I mentioned give us a little more to play with. The examples I’ve mentioned give exchanges that provide interest outside the set pieces. Such exchanges bolster the movie and provide motivations and heft to the proceedings that Life is only vaguely interested in. One character hints at a damaged life back on earth that they’d rather not go back to, but this is a transparent moment to provide a small jolt later in the screenplay. It never feels like a true revelation of character. Life is so fleeting with such aspects, it makes things tough to fully surrender to it when the proverbial poo hits the fan. 

It’s easy to be cynical about a feature that isn’t hurting anyone. While it’s a shame that Life has no jagged edges, save for a twilight zone sting at its climax, that fact that it’s a smooth ride, is actually quite nice. It rises above the likes of Espinosa’s Child 44 simply by holding a coherence which that film did not. It holds a decent amount of suspense when it’s on point and has a solid cast holding it together. It’s still a step above a wallpaper movie and despite appearing a little worn, the corners are not peeling enough for the whole thing to be torn down. 

Review: Child 44

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Screenplay: Richard Price

Starring: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, Vincent Cassel

Synopsis is here:

I often find myself getting into conversations of adaptation, with a good friend of mine whose and avid consumer of books and film. Our talks usually debate about how a film can keep hold of the book's spirit. It can never be the book. It’s not that medium, nor should it aspire to be. Not every element can make the translation. Filmmakers must traipse through the difficult task of pruning and trimming in order to gain the right fruits for the film to bear. Child 44 is a film in which clearly somebody wanted all the fruits to grow. Due to this there’s far much to pick. It is then when we yield rotten berries.

A telling review of the novel by Angus Macqueen, hints the story’s commercial aspirations, but also describes the writer Tom Rob Smith’s desire to encompass so much of Stalin’s Russia into the fiction, that it becomes difficult to take the book too seriously. While I cannot fully pass judgement on the novel. I can say that it’s hard not to feel similarly about the film.

Child 44 is quite simply a thriller that doesn’t thrill. It alludes to richness by placing forth a multitude of sub-plots, but does little to give them decent resolutions. It suggests relationships with depth, but does little to build on them. The film suffers from the same irritation that comes with Michael Bay’s Transformer Movies, in which length is believed to be a decent substitute for scale. The film's setting and historical background should provide intrigue. Yet this is clouded by drab conversations in dubious faux Russian accents and multiple scenes which grind the pace of the film to halt. Moments which should be revelations, never build to the vital discoveries the film purports them to be. This is mainly because the film never allows such moments to breathe. The elements of the overstuffed narrative come across just as cumbersome as the films clunky action set pieces. The film’s climax ends up in a muddy quagmire, which amused me, as this is how I felt about the piece in general.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Easy Money) is more than capable of crafting taut, commercial thrillers. Safe House (2012) is a solid example of that. Here, however, his talents seemed bogged down by a predictable screenplay (a rare misfire from scribe Richard Price), which holds a truckload of moving parts. Despite the valiant efforts of its brooding cast, so many of the film's characters feel on the periphery of the narrative. There’s a nagging feeling that one or two players had more moments left on the cutting room floor. Then again, this could have made Child 44 possibly longer. Which for myself, could have been more torture than being sent to a gulag. A contrived line? Perhaps. But no more than what Child 44 deserves. For the same price of a ticket, you could purchase Fritz Lang’s excellent M (1931) on Blu Ray, which not only deals with similar issues better, but is nearly 30 minutes shorter. The value of economy, eh?