Life

First Hit:  This film tried to be a horror thriller in the science fiction genre, but ended up being lifeless.

The film starts a little confusingly but with some interest. For some reason there wasn’t enough clear back fill as to how a space probe left Mars, heading for Earth and a space station had to catch it or…. Once I got past this unsolved puzzle, watching the team’s pilot Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds) move a space arm to catch this thing in space was cool. However, any probe coming from Mars would be traveling much faster than it shows here, another puzzle to solve.

After bringing the soil samples into a sealed (not really because there were vents) bio-testing chamber, British biologist Hugh Derry (Arilyon Bakare) starts fiddling with the samples and finds a living one cell protoplasmic entity. Adjusting the mixture of oxygen and stuff, it grows. As Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson), Quarantine Officer states; “…all muscle, all brain, and all eye.” It is named “Calvin” by some school children. I liked the reference in some ways because “Calvin and Hobbs” was one of my favorite comic strips and the character Calvin was a handful.

Hugh is like a child with this discovery and Rory states “there’s going to be a huge custody battle over this”, mostly because the space station has multi-national people working on board and it is the “International Space Station” (ISS).

To give some character to the team, Sho’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) wife gives birth while he watches it on a personal video device. Commander Katerina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya) is Russian and is ultimately responsible for the safety of the crew. Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the medical officer and has been in space longer than anyone 400+ days. He likes it there because being on the ISS it is a controllable environment for him.

So what happens? Calvin gets loose and attacks people because humans are filled with the type of liquid nutrients it needs to survive. As Hugh states at one point, it is just trying to survive. All havoc breaks loose, Earth loses communication contact with ISS and decides to send a Soyuz capsule up to push the ISS into deep space forever, killing everyone and everything on the ship. However, when this plan fails, the last two living humans make a decision to try to save Earth from Calvin.

Part of the problem, is that Calvin wasn’t interesting, I didn’t care about the characters, and it seemed like a fight in futility from the get go. Then there were the logistics issues that I pointed out above.

Reynolds had little screen time and maybe the film would have done better with his presence extended. Bakare was OK, but a bit too inquisitive in trying to make Calvin respond to stimuli, which wasn't scientifically stringent enough if this were real. Ferguson was bland and didn’t really add much to the film. Dihovichnaya was OK, but didn’t seem to be controlling her team much, which caused part of the problem. Gyllenhaal was good and one of the better parts of the film because you can tell he pours himself into each part. Sanada was OK and didn’t add much to the overall picture. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were both probably aiming for an “Alien” type film but ended up alienating this audience – some actually walked out during my viewing. Daniel Espinosa had some great photography, and visual effects, but the weak script and story deflated the overall presentation.

Overall:  This film will not get reviewed well and just didn’t work

Safe House

First Hit:  A lot of shooting, confusing story, and Denzel has some nice lines to say.

The story is somewhat confusing because we never deeply understand why Tobin Frost (played by Denzel Washington) decides to become a rogue agent.

Once a premier CIA agent, he splits from the agency and starts trading in top secrets and information to other people and agencies throughout the world. There is a moment where he tries to share his angst for killing innocent people but it falls flat.

The film starts with Frost picking up and getting ready to sell some files about MI6 and CIA agents. A group tries to kill him after he picks up the electronic files encased in a small capsule so, for safety, he runs to the U.S. embassy and turns himself in.

He’s taken to a “Safe House” run by Matt Weston (played by Ryan Reynolds). Weston is bored with his job because no one stays at his house. He lies to his live-in girlfriend Ana (played by Nora Arnezeder) that he does different work. He makes up excuses to not be available to her when Frost is taken his “Safe House” for interrogation.

However, Matt does love Ana which is one part of the story that works. While being interrogated, the “Safe House” is raided by the same guys who were trying to kill Frost earlier, so Weston grabs Frost and escapes through a secret hall out of the house.

Stealing a car he calls the CIA and gets instructions about what to do next. Frost, who likes to get into people's heads, asks Matt how the assassins knew he was in the “Safe House”? It took Weston most of the film to figure it out, while most of the film audience knew who sold him out much earlier.

There are lots of chases, some good like the initial car chase and some not so good, like one of the rooftop chases (too long). The CIA heads who are assisting Weston were his boss David Barlow (played by Brendan Gleeson), Catherine Linklater (played by Vera Farmiga), and their boss Harlan Whitford (played by Sam Shepard).

Washington is OK in this role but hampered by the script and direction. The story didn’t let him expand and create a deeper more interesting character. Reynolds was better as the restless “Safe House” keeper. His character was expanded by his love for Ana and some real questions about his job choice. Arnezeder was OK in this limited role. Gleeson was too transparent and his real role slipped out too early. Farmiga was out of her element and didn’t come off as a real, let alone strong CIA team leader. Shepard was strong in his role. David Guggenheim wrote a poorly constructed script with little depth. It stayed on the surface and there was little character development. Daniel Espinosa directed this with little regard for depth but very long on shooting and killing action.

Overall:  This film had a lot of violence which took away from what could have been something thrilling.