LIFE : Tuesday 28th March 2017.

I was keen to see 'LIFE' which I caught earlier on in the week. Directed by Daniel Espinosa, whose previous credits include 'Child 44' and 'Safe House', this Horror Sci-Fi, was made for US$58M, was released in the US and Australia on 23rd March, has so far grossed US$32M and garnered average reviews. This I have to say, I find a little surprising because I, for one enjoyed this isolated space station romp that has elements of 'Alien', 'Gravity' and 'Sunshine' in its make-up, and serves as a pre-cursor to the eagerly awaited much grittier 'Alien : Covenant' due in May this year, courtesy of franchise originator Ridley Scott.

The film is set entirely aboard an International Space Station sometime in the near future where the six-man crew successfully intercept an off course satellite probe returning from Mars with soil samples inside.

The crew is tasked with analysing that sample for what may prove to be the first signs of extra terrestrial life. British biologist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) who is expert in life forms beyond Earth, is able to extract a single cell from the soil samples, and sparks it into life by making adjustments to the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide mixture he exposes it to, together with a dose of glucose. As time goes on the cell quickly grows into a multi-celled organism that begins to react to external stimulus.

Upon further analysis, and given the rate of growth Derry and British Quarantine Officer Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Fergusson) determine that each cell in the organism is a highly evolved muscle, brain and eye, all at once. As the days pass and become a couple of weeks the crew go about their normal space station routines - they eat, sleep, exercise, joke around and celebrate the birth of Japanese Systems Engineer Sho Murakami's (Hiroyuki Sanada) baby which he viewed live on screen. The next day or so there is an atmospheric leak in the lab where the organism is securely contained, causing it to become dormant. Derry attempts to reanimate it using a mild electric shock.

In so doing, after a number of seemingly unsuccessful attempts, the organism latches onto Derry's hand with an inordinate strength and wraps itself increasingly tightly around his lower arm. As Derry struggles to break free, so the vice like grip worsens. Derry's Space Station colleagues look on in horror from the other side of the lab containment wall, fearful of what action to take. Eventually Derry breaks free, but his hand is crushed, limp and bloody.

The organism breaks free from its contained examination cube, demonstrating its intelligence, and into the secure lab where Derry is nursing his crushed hand. American engineer and pilot of the International Space Station Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds) enters the room in an attempt to rescue his colleague. By now the organism has devoured a lab rat and has grown further in size almost instantly. Sensing the presence of another human, the organism attaches itself to Adams leg and begins to crawl upwards. At this point all Hell has broken out. American Senior Medical Officer Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) locks Rory inside the lab, so securing the organism, which Adams then attacks with a handheld incinerator device. But the organism it seems is able to withstand intense heat, and evades Adams attempts to kill it, by manoeuvering itself around the enclosed room with speed and agility. When the incinerator runs out of gas, and Adams attempt to foil that pesky alien critter have failed, that organism attaches itself to his face and slides into his mouth - killing Adams from the inside. Minutes later, with Adams body contorted and spitting globules of blood from his mouth, the organism emerges, having grown bigger again. Using an emergency fire suppression vent as a means of escape, the organism breaks out of the lab, and now has the run of the Space Station.

All means of communication with Earth suddenly are cut off. Russian crew Commander Katarina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya) takes it upon herself to take a space walk to repair what is believed to be a broken antenna. In repairing the damage she notices that coolant has been drained from a reservoir and assumes that the organism has consumed it as a means of feeding itself. At this point the organism escapes through the antenna valve and promptly attacks Golovkina during her space walk, trying to gain entry through her space suit. In the ensuing struggle, her suits coolant system is ruptured pouring liquid coolant inside her suit - effectively drowning her.  Her limp lifeless body drifts off into space.

The organism gains entry back inside the Space Station. The remaining crew hatch a plan to make the organism dormant again by sealing themselves into one single module and venting all the atmosphere out of the remaining Station. In doing so, Derry goes into cardiac arrest. Jordan and North are able to resuscitate him, but only to see movement under his trouser leg. The organism has attached itself to Derry's leg and is feeding off him. Derry is paraplegic and so had no sense of touch or feeling in his legs. When the organism is revealed it has grown again, and is now a much larger more menacing tentacled creature than before even. It lunges to attack the there remaining crew who all head off in different directions. Sho heads to the sleeping quarters and quickly locks himself inside his sleeping pod with the organism hot on his heels. It attempts to break into the pod by crushing the glass, but is unsuccessful. Jordan and North attempt to tease the organism away from Sho, using the corpse of Derry as bait, and they are successful in locking it inside a module to deprive it of oxygen.

When a Russian Soyuz Capsule docks with the Space Station in response to an emergency SOS call before all communications were lost, Sho makes a dash for it believing this to be a rescue mission. The reality is however, that the Soyuz is there to push the Space Station into deep space, so preventing the organism from ever reaching Earth, where it will wipe out mankind, as it is believed to have done on Mars. The Soyuz Capsule docks against the module where the organism is contained, and in opening the hatch to gain entry, Sho is immediately attacked as are the crew of the Russian craft. Causing a docking breach, the Soyuz capsule is pushed backwards where it spirals out of control and crashes into the Stations vital infrastructure.

The collision causes the oxygen levels and the temperature to plummet very quickly. Jordan has a plan involving two escape pods, each of which are pre-programmed to auto-pilot back down to Earth.  He takes it upon himself to lure the organism into his pod and manually override the auto-pilot command and head out into deep space so sacrificing himself but ensuring that the organism cannot be Earthbound. He fears that the organism would likely survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, and so this is the only option. This will create the necessary distraction to allow North to make a clean getaway in the other escape pod.

Jordan lures the organism into his pod with heat sticks given that the temperatures now on board have dropped to dangerously low levels. Meanwhile North clambers in to hers. Her pod is knocked off course when it hits debris from the earlier collision. The organism attacks Jordan while he is trying to control the trajectory of his pod. At first the pods are side by side, but with the ensuing dilemma confronting both survivors, they soon divert and head off in different directions - one bound for home, and the other for deep space.

There will be obvious comparisons here to Ridley Scott's ground breaking 'Alien' and that would be hardly surprising, especially given the imminent arrival in a couple of months of his 'Alien : Covenant' which is already gaining much publicity. At a brisk running time just on one hundred minutes or so, this film propels you into the action fairly quickly, and layers on the suspense, but there are no jump scares in this film that you might expect from its horror tag. It is well acted, well crafted, looks impressive and delivers exactly what you would expect from a stranded all alone educated and level headed expert crew battling an evil unknown alien foe that is capable of wiping out all humankind, and prepared to sacrifice themselves for the greater good in the process. We've seen films of this type for decades, and there are a few that deliver a much better result, but equally there are plenty that fall way short of 'Life'. The film works on many levels, and I enjoyed the ride, and it is certainly worth the price of your ticket.

 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE MARTIAN : Wednesday 7th October 2015

I had to see 'THE MARTIAN' this week, being a big fan of Ridley Scott who is back doing his Sci-Fi best with his latest offering now out on general release and taken from the 2011 novel of the same name by Andy Weir. Co-Produced by Scott this film features an all star cast and was made for US$108M, and filmed on a huge sound stage in Hungary and in Jordan where a desert wadi served as a practical back drop for the red planet. The film premiered at the recent Toronto International Film Festival and at the time of writing has already grossed US$132M in Box Office receipts.

The film is set sometime in the near future, although we are not told exactly when, but suffice to say we have the technology to get a Team to Mars and build a base camp there. And so, we meet that Team of six going about their business on Mars, collecting samples, mapping out the area, and doing what you do when on a distant planet. All seems perfectly normal and copacetic until a severe storm engulfs them with only little advance warning. Needing to make a quick decision to stay or go, they board their vessel to take them back to the mothership and back home to Earth - some two years away or so. During the maelstrom Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by flying debris, and thrown back into the storm and beyond reach, now believed dead since all communication with him has been lost. Commanding Officer Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) searches for a brief time, but as the storm continues to intensify the need to depart quickly becomes the overarching priority to save the remaining crew. She gives the order to depart, leaving Watney behind, presumed dead.

Back on Earth, Head of NASA Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) advises the world that Mark Watney was killed in a freak accident during a storm and that the remaining crew are safe and are now making their long way home. Watney is honoured, there is a state funeral and the focus switches to bringing the crew of the Ares III manned mission home safe on their ship Hermes. By now a few months have past on Earth, but back on Mars Mark Watney is not dead, but very much alive & kicking, albeit injured at the time of the storm but made good from some creative self-surgery and a staple gun.

Realising the challenges that lie ahead he needs to adapt to survive, or drown & die in his own sorrows. As it is Watney is made of sterner stuff, is resilient, inventive, motivated, resourceful and above all else, a Botanist. As such, he quickly converts a section of his base camp to a greenhouse, shovels in few hundred weight of Mars red soil and plants potatoes (yes, fresh spuds were stored in cryovac to cook fresh intergalactic style) in a fertilised mix of red soil and human faeces individually vac-packed away as it is in space! Lo and behold a few months later, and Watney proclaims himself 'the best Botanist on the planet '. . . and he is! With his rations having to sustain for longer and longer, there's always a humble potato to sustain with lashings of ketchup!

Meanwhile back on the home planet Sanders has revealed to the world that Watney is in fact alive having picked up various signals and broadcasts that Watney has figured out how to make using the technology he has been able to muster, repair and adapt to communicate that he is very much alive. By now months have passed by and the crew on the mothership returning to Earth have not yet been advised that the man they left behind, believed dead, is in fact still alive. At home Sanders begins to mobilise the necessary resources to return Watney, but this is going to be no easy and no speedy process, and they know that Watney's time is precious and running out.

NASA hatch a plan to send a probe to Mars with sufficient supplies aboard to sustain Watney until the next manned mission on Ares IV - which based on build time, launch and journey will be close to four years. On Mars Watney records his daily activities, his progress, his thoughts, ideas and ramblings on a video journal - this helps him maintain his sanity and moves the story along as he tries to figure out how to establish communications back to Earth and how he can get to the landing site for Ares IV which already contains some of the basic infrastructure for that planned future landing - but it is a long way away and the rover he uses for transport is only capable of travelling short distances before its batteries need recharging, and at night time out in the open the temperatures drop to freezing very quickly too.

Watney also suffers a major setback when an airlock into his base camp explodes ripping open a side wall into the makeshift greenhouse that he has fabricated in which his potato crops grow. The crop is destroyed and with it his ability to grow more, so reducing his food supply which he must now ration further. On Earth, the probe containing Watney's supplies is launched, but this was a rush job, corners were cut and pressures were bought to bear to respond quickly. With an air of excitement at NASA launch control, the probe takes off but within minutes explodes mid-air after launch, leaving the ground Teams despondent and wondering what next.

By now the world is watching every development that NASA makes and is behind the rescue mission to bring Watney home. Enter the Chinese National Space Agency who have secretly developed their own booster rocket technology that could carry the payload needed safely, reliably and accurately to Mars. They agree to share this with NASA and so preparations are made but the time it will take to reach Mars versus the calculated time that Watney has left is becoming increasingly slim, and risky.

Alternatively astrodynamicist Rich Purnell (Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino) has calculated a plan to slingshot the returning crew aboard Hermes around Earth using its gravitational pull, and to intercept the probe and return to Mars to pick up their colleague. Lewis made the decision to leave Watney behind and abort the mission in the first place and so is now torn between her overwhelming need to return to bring him home, and the safety of her remaining crew mates, and the fact that this would mean an additional 15 months+ of space time. Only by unanimous decision would she do it - and that unanimous decision is given very quickly by the crew.

And so preparations are made accordingly with the landing site of the future Ares IV mission being where Watney needs to get to in order that he can lift off from there in the launch vehicle to intercept in space with the Hermes. On Earth the Teams determine that the launch vehicle as it stands is too overladen with weight for the journey required and so they instruct Watney to strip it down to the barest of essentials, including windows and nose cone - his spacesuit will ultimately protect him against the vacuum of space and the hazards associated with this flight. As Hermes approaches the count-down is readied and Watney prepares himself for launch. All goes well with the launch but the trajectory is off and there is an increasing danger that one will not intercept with the other, so here some quick thinking is necessary by Lewis, her crew and the lone Watney, and ultimately, they all live happily ever after!

In strong supporting roles there is also Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent Kapoor, and Sean Bean as Mitch Henderson both NASA Mission Directors, Kristen Wiig as Annie Montrose the NASA spokesperson,  and fellow astronauts Michael Pena as Rick Martinez, Kate Mara as Beth Johanssen, Sebastian Stan as Chris Beck, and Aksel Hennie as Alex Vogel. This is a solidly entertaining film that delivers on many levels. Scott here is in familiar territory having given us so many standout Sci-Fi offerings over the years that you can tell he is in his comfort zone here adapting an already strong and popular story with great visuals, just the right amount of humour, solid performances from the principle cast, sufficient moments of action and enough tension, anticipation and excitement to sustain its 140 minutes of run time. And really, who cares how many times Hollywood has to rescue Matt Damon - this is a good wholesome mix of science and entertainment that is certainly worth checking out, and if you liked 'Interstellar' and 'Gravity', you'll enjoy this.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-