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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.

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Daniel Espinosa

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David Jordan

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(as Leila Grace Bostwick-Riddell)

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Trivia It was intended to have Ryan Reynolds play the main character. However, scheduling conflicts with The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) forced him to take a supporting role instead.
Goofs In the opening scene, the view of outer space from the International Space Station shows twinkling stars. Stars do not actually twinkle in the way we see them, but the twinkling is an optical illusion of the light from stars being refracted by the earth's atmosphere.

David Jordan : Goodnight, nobody.

Crazy credits The music for the end titles begins with the song Spirit in the Sky. This was used during the live broadcast from the ill-fated Apollo XIII moon mission. A recreation of this broadcast, along with this song, was included in the film of the same name. The irony is intentional, as the song is about dying.
Connections Featured in Film '72: Episode #46.7 (2017)
Soundtracks Let's Get It On Written by Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend

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dschoenenberger
Mar 23, 2017
Why do they keep the poor little rat tied up?The answers given make sense except that animal testing in space has not been occurring since the 1940s! That might have been a typo error. The 1950s is likely what was meant because the first man-made object ever sent into space was the Russian satellite, Sputnik, back in 1958.
March 24, 2017 (United States)
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$58,000,000 (estimated)
$30,234,022
$12,501,936
Mar 26, 2017
$100,541,806

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Runtime 1 hour 44 minutes
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Review: In ‘Life,’ Extraterrestrial Fun, Until Someone Gets Hurt

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By Ben Kenigsberg

March 23, 2017

In an opening sequence, “ Life ” allows viewers to float through an international space station. The camera zips around corners and turns upside-down in a feat of impossible (and most likely effects-massaged) cinematography. It’s tempting to tune out the exposition and simply concentrate on the director Daniel Espinosa’s dazzling imagery, even if it now looks familiar from “Gravity” and “Avatar.”

The astronauts on board are on a mission to retrieve samples from Mars. The biggest find is a single-cell organism: proof of life on another planet. Because movie monsters never stay small, Calvin (as a girl on Earth names it) soon grows into a kind of iridescent snail. Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare), an exobiologist, marvels that each of Calvin’s cells can perform every somatic function. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson), who is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and makes fruitless arguments for quarantines, translates: Calvin can simultaneously be all muscle, all brain and all eye.

Movie Review: ‘Life’

The times critic ben kenigsberg reviews “life.".

In “Life” a team of astronauts finds the first life from Mars. In his review Ben Kenigsberg writes: The camera zips around corners and turns upside-down in a feat of impossible (and likely effects-massaged) cinematography. The film is a trap because having started so promisingly, quickly settles for becoming yet another clone of “Alien,” as space travelers play a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a shape-shifting Martian. Despite the promise of an all-muscle, all-brain, all-eye creature, the effects artists seem to have gotten their visual ideas by playing mix-and-match at an aquarium. The primary suspense comes from wondering whether the killings will come in the reverse order of star billing.

It sounds like a trap — and it is. And not just because Calvin, at first playfully curious toward Hugh, turns hostile after a moment of human error. No, it’s a trap because the movie, having started so promisingly, quickly settles for becoming yet another clone of “Alien,” as space travelers play a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a shape-shifting Martian. (Not counting the android in that Ridley Scott 1979 film, “Life” even has the same number of crew members.)

The primary suspense comes from wondering whether the killings will follow the reverse order of star billing. The humans include Jake Gyllenhaal as a medic, who is growing loony from too much time in space. (Having seen military carnage, he doesn’t much care for Earth, anyway.) Hiroyuki Sanada plays the flight engineer with a newborn at home. In the best scene, Ryan Reynolds, as the crew’s mechanic, charges into the lab to rescue Hugh and is trapped with an extremely irritated Calvin, then in his jellyfish stage. (Despite the promise of an all-muscle, all-brain, all-eye creature, the effects artists seem to have gotten their visual ideas by playing mix-and-match at an aquarium.)

And as the astronauts contend with airlocks, busted equipment and escape pods, it becomes increasingly difficult to pretend that this isn’t territory where more inventive screenwriters (Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the writers here, are also responsible for “Deadpool”) and stronger visual stylists have gone before. The movie isn’t, to paraphrase a line from “Spaceballs,” the stupidest combination you’ve ever heard. But it’s not very good, either.

Life Rated R for gravity-free blood globs. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes.

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Life review: this space-horror movie is a creepy but familiar cover of Alien

With a dash of gravity thrown in for dizzying effect.

By Tasha Robinson

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One of the great gifts Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror classic Alien brought to the world was a space monster that felt like it had a little science behind it. It’s standard for the creatures in creature-features to get scarier as the movie goes along, but Alien writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett came up with a particularly plausible reason for their xenomorph antagonist to keep evolving into more threatening forms: its species has a life cycle, with stages inspired by insects. The new space-thriller Life borrows a lot of its broad ideas and narrow story beats from Alien , to the point where it feels like a cover version of Scott’s film, and one of the elements it most prominently borrows is the idea of an alien that grows physically larger and more deadly as the action builds. But Life lacks that satisfying next step, where it adds the background that makes the unlikely seem reasonable. Life is a sleek, effective thriller, sometimes scary and often visually impressive. But too often, its reasons for doing absolutely anything amount to “because this is the way Alien did it.”

The film starts aboard the International Space Station, which is retrieving a lander that scooped up Martian soil samples, then was thrown off its planned trajectory by space debris. Most of the ISS crew are serious people who even make their jokes in hushed near-whispers: Russian mission commander Ekaterina (Olga Dihovichnaya), medical officer David (Jake Gyllenhaal), British xenobiologist Hugh (Ariyon Bakare), Japanese systems engineer Sho (Hiroyuki Sanada), and Miranda (Rebecca Ferguson), from the CDC. Only flight engineer Rory (Ryan Reynolds) talks like he isn’t being polite in a library. He actually talks exactly like Reynolds’ character in Deadpool , though with the obscenity knob turned way down — he’s brash, babbly, and funny, with a smartass energy that’s welcome in such a reserved space. (Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick also wrote Deadpool , but they reserve their humor here for a small window of the film before things get grim.)

Eventually, the Martian soil samples make it onto the station, and Hugh is ecstatic to find they contain perfectly preserved single-celled organisms, which he immediately rushes to reanimate. And events fall out from there, as poorly as in any of the endless horror films where scientists foolishly play God and get dramatically punished — or at least where scientists bypass sensible, rigorous experimental protocols in order to move things along at a cinema-friendly rate. Before long, the crew is at odds with a rapacious alien, incongruously named “Calvin” by an Earthside elementary-school vote. There’s something particularly undignified about getting messily murdered by something named Calvin, but that doesn’t keep the ISS crew from consistently using the name in their hushed, serious voices as the creature picks them off one by one.

For someone who’s never seen Alien — or Alfonso Cuarón’s terrifying 2013 space-survival thriller Gravity , which Life also mimics a fair bit — Life could largely be a dramatic, satisfying experience. Director Daniel Espinosa ( Safe House ) can’t top Gravity ’s terrifying spacewalk scenes, with the sense of Earth looming over astronauts like an immense, inimical shadow. But he does set up plenty of extremely convincing zero-gravity action, with his cast casually buzzing around the ISS like bees in a hive, steering themselves with hand-and-footholds, or working upside-down relative to the audience. That sense of “there’s no up in space” is particularly strong in Life , and with Espinosa’s camera swirling around the cast in long, dizzying takes, the disorientation makes for a solid thrill-ride experience. It also makes things scarier when Calvin starts posing a significant threat. The station is a sterile, claustrophobic place to begin with, and with so little warmth in Espinosa’s chilly visual aesthetic, and no clear up-or-down orientation, the ISS lacks any sense of comfort or familiarity. There’s no sense of a safe haven where the characters can retreat.

The zero-G setting ramps up the stakes in another way: Calvin was designed for zero gravity, and navigates it like a native. Watching it cruise through the ISS at breakneck speeds is like watching the first fast-zombie movie after a lifetime of slow-zombie movies. Calvin’s one advantage over H.R. Giger’s much more id-activating xenomorph design is its speed and grace in a setting humans can only become comfortable with up to a point. The filmmakers draw significantly on terrestrial octopuses for Calvin’s problem-solving abilities and boneless escape routines, but when it starts chasing down crew members, it’s more like a cheetah running down hapless antelopes.

But there’s still a sense of redundancy to nearly everything that happens in Life . Whether the crew is sitting down to a cheerful meal together, fighting over whether to let a compromised crew member out of quarantine in a panic-inducing situation, or figuring out how to deal with an escape pod compromised by an alien, they’re walking through Alien ’s plot beat for beat, sometimes nearly scene for scene. They can only come across as worse by comparison. Life spends a little more time establishing its characters’ distinct personalities than Alien , and to the filmmakers’ credit, they find some creative, awful, unexpected new ways to die in space. They also evoke plenty of the inevitability and isolation that ramps up the stakes in any horror movie.

But too much of Life is nakedly cribbed from a better movie, and too much of it is inherently self-important and silly. David’s character is the worst offender, with the most awkward scenes and lines, some of them bordering on bad comedy. When he tells Miranda that as a traumatized military vet, he doesn’t want to go back to Earth because “I like the hum up here, and the air,” he sounds like a dopey space-age Forrest Gump, trying to turn a monotonal, hyper-simplistic statement into a manifesto. When he busts out Goodnight Moon for a dramatic, emotional reading at a critical moment, the entire film threatens to fall down the gravity well of its own idiocy. It’s a moment designed for endless parody; surely Saturday Night Live is already queuing up a guest spot where Gyllenhaal laboriously reads other children’s books in the middle of deadly catastrophes.

And the closer Life gets to the climax, the more balls its story drops. One of the most crucial action scenes is rushed, visually muddled, and hard to follow. The story loses any sense of its characters as individual people, and turns them into generic horror-movie stooges lining up to die. A development allowing them to track Calvin through the ship is abruptly forgotten. And as the novelty of Calvin’s appearance and behavior wears off, it starts to look more and more ridiculous, especially as it stops developing into something increasingly frightening, and just becomes a free-floating CGI effect. Life front-loads its best scenes into the film’s early going, and everything from there is a slow free-fall downward into a fairly silly place. It’s okay to cover the classics; practically every musician wants to play around with their idols’ work. But Life feels like a strictly subtractive cover of Alien that loses too much of what made it memorable, and doesn’t bring enough new to the table.

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Review: 'Life’ is worth living for two freaky hours

Looking for intelligent life in the universe always seems like an OK plan until a savvy malevolent alien organism goes berserk on your space vessel.

Starring a couple of A-listers in Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, the new sci-fi film Life (**½ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) navigates very familiar terrain and unleashed creature terror. And while it shares more than a few commonalities with Ridley Scott’s seminal Alien , director Daniel Espinosa’s thriller gives audiences a seriously cool monster and a sinister twist on a survival-of-the-fittest theme.

The six-person crew aboard the International Space Station is wrapping up an eight-month mission to bring back soil samples and possible organic matter from Mars. Things are hairy right from the start, as mission specialist Rory Adams (Reynolds) has to use a crane arm to catch the out-of-control capsule, which was damaged on the way back from the red planet.

Ryan Reynolds 'terrified' daughter James in his 'Life' spacesuit

Luckily (or so it seems at the time), the astronauts dig in and find a microscopic life form far beyond anything they’ve ever seen on a cellular level. The evolutionary process is speedy and within a few weeks, Calvin — the name given to this cute, transparent starfish-y beastie — grows bigger and more intelligent, using surprising smarts to worm his way out of his confines and into the station’s nooks and crannies. The team and Calvin engage in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the alien turning into a shockingly adept predator ruling this enclosed food chain.

“Life’s very existence requires destruction,” says paraplegic scientist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) in a quiet moment before more chaos and carnage caused by a crafty Calvin. Much of the cosmic claustrophobia, body invasion and other genre elements create a palpable tension but are pretty standard stuff for sci-fi fans, and it’s not until the very end where the true horror satisfyingly presents itself.

The characters are mostly thin and act as fodder for Calvin’s increasingly devious nature, though Gyllenhaal’s role, veteran spaceman David Jordan, is at least nuanced in showcasing a guy who’s spent so much time in orbit he’d rather be there than on Earth. Also of note: Rebecca Ferguson’s microbiologist Miranda North, who has to weigh her and her colleagues' lives vs. the greater good of keeping Calvin far away from human civilization.

The screenplay (by Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) unsurprisingly gives all its one-liners to Reynolds, who’s ostensibly the film’s resident comic relief, and is well paced in pitting its primary villain vs. a bunch of space nerds. But it also goes further than just scare tactics: An underlying aspect of the narrative is how, in the wild (or among the stars), wonder and awe with the unknown takes a back seat to getting out alive for each life form on board, whether you have hands or tentacles.

The best moments from Ryan Reynolds' Hasty Pudding ceremony

When fully developed, Calvin is a vicious dose of visual-effects nightmare fuel, otherworldly but also oddly realistic in the primal way it moves and acts. Just as effective is composer Jon Ekstrand’s fabulous score, which combines majestic power chords connoting the majesty of space with the dissonance of what lies waiting for us out there.

It’s far from perfect, but Life ’s worth living for two freaky hours.

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Life review: Proof the sci-fi horror is alive and well

To call it derivative is to miss the point. its premise may be familiar but there is plenty of energy and ingenuity in the way the filmmakers tackle their material, article bookmarked.

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Daniel Espinosa, 110 mins, starring: Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson

Daniel Espinosa’s new feature provides incontrovertible proof that, well over three decades after that polyp-like succubus exploded out of John Hurt’s stomach in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), the sci-fi horror film is alive and well. This is superior genre fare. It borrows not only from Scott’s movie but from 2001: A Space Odyssey , Gravity, and countless other films too.

To call it derivative is to miss the point. Its premise may be familiar but there is plenty of energy and ingenuity in the way the filmmakers tackle their material. Espinosa realises that the most spectacular special effects will mean nothing unless the film has the human factor – and the audience feels a strong connection with the characters. The most disturbing shots here are the close-ups of the crew members’ faces as they realise the predicament they’ve landed in.

The build-up is on the leisurely side. Six crew members are aboard the International Space Station. They all have different skill sets and they come from different countries. In the early scenes, they’re very pleased with themselves. They’ve just captured a “Mars sample”, a tiny little organism no bigger than an anchovy fillet that they’ve christened “Calvin”. They’re enraptured by this spirogyra-like being. British scientist Hugh (Ariyon Bakare) delights in twirling the tiny creature at the end of his fingers. His colleagues can’t help but anthropomorphise it. The idea that it might be hostile barely crosses their minds.

Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey throws in lots of long takes of the characters floating around the space ship. Ryan Reynolds plays Rory, a wise-ass astronaut, goading the Brits over their lack of hygiene (they’re an “under-washed nation” he jokes). Jake Gyllenhaal’s character Dr David Jordan has been in space for well over 400 days and is a dreamy and idealistic figure.

Rebecca Ferguson’s Dr Miranda North is overseeing safety procedures, making sure there are enough firewalls in place to ensure nothing goes wrong. Hiroyuki Sanada is the laidback Japanese engineer whose wife has just given birth to a baby back home on earth. Olga Dihovichnaya’s close-cropped but glamorous Russian astronaut Katerina is the closest to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien .

They’re in touch with Earth, giving interviews to doe-eyed kids who ask them questions like: “how do you go to the bathroom in space?” With all the characters so relaxed, we know that it is only a matter of time until something terrible happens.

Even at the grimmest moments, Espinosa looks for the visual poetry. This can be very macabre. If someone is vomiting blood, he’ll show slow motion footage of little red beads floating in the air. There’s a certain grotesque lyricism, too, to the scenes in which the creature slithers its way down characters’ throats or curls around them in a python-like embrace. In the universe the director conjures up here, everything becomes threatening. A kids’ bedtime story like Goodnight Moon takes on a sinister quality.

The six crew members are all consummate professionals who know exactly how to behave if something goes wrong. This makes it all the more jarring when they realise how helpless they are. The tone of the storytelling gradually begins to shift. An air of unease creeps in.

We may be in a spaceship but Life has elements both of the serial killer genre and of the haunted house movie. The filmmakers use the architecture of the ship – its labyrinthine corridors, hatches and door locks – to create a sense of menace. This little filament-like creature is “all muscle, all brain, and all eye”. It needs food and oxygen to survive. If that means killing off the humans one by one, it will do so. As the tension rises, we hear pounding electronic music on the soundtrack.

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Just occasionally, Espinosa’s approach becomes repetitive. More than once, a character slams a hatch shut just as the creature lands with a squelching thud on the glass. We see it face to face with the humans. As the crew members become more desperate, they begin to behave like pest exterminators with a bug they just can’t kill. They try to suffocate it, to incinerate it, to flush it away into outer space, to stun it and to chop it up but this is one life form they just can’t erase.

Espinosa contrasts microscopic visual detail – shots of fingers in a glove being crushed or of display panels turning an ominous red – with sequences showing space in its vastness. Inevitably, characters have to venture outside the space station to make vital repairs or to try to dislodge Calvin. He (and we assume he is a “he”) is implacable and very cunning. “Calvin doesn’t hate us but he has to kill us in order to survive,” is the most optimistic gloss any of the crew members can put on the creature’s ever more malevolent behaviour.

One challenge that sci-fi movies like this always face is how to balance the sublime elements with the sometimes very corny genre conventions. At times here, Espinosa seems uncertain as to whether this is a film exploring the mysteries of the cosmos or a B-movie fairground ride. For all its lurches in tone, this is enjoyable and provocative storytelling which manages again and again to make us shudder and jump. Its characters react to their predicament rationally and courageously but when they’re up against a creature like Calvin, that is never going to be enough.

Life opens in UK cinemas 24 March

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As Sci-Fi, Life Is Just So-So. But As Horror, It Works.

It’s a bit early still, but I’d like to make a prediction: In the tradition of New York and Los Angeles getting engulfed by flame and flood and nuclear winter, the International Space Station is the next outpost of human civilization we’ll see habitually demolished onscreen, over and over again. It got a clobbering from debris in 2014 in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity , and it similarly takes a beating in the opening moments of Life. Is the ISS, a multinational research vessel that inspires schoolchildren and promotes cooperation among the scientific community, begging for a cinematic hubris check? If it is, you can bet there will be more to worry about than a little space trash.

Life follows a group of six astronauts aboard the ISS, tasked with examining a rock sample from Mars. Biologist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) has discovered a dormant single-cell organism in the sample. He manages to wake it up with a little heat and glucose (who among us can resist this combo?) and the world rejoices at the first discovery of extraterrestrial life. We see this primarily via an overhead shot of a packed Times Square — even in the near future, everyone will still descend on midtown to watch television. A group of children are given the opportunity to name the creature, and they name it after their elementary school: “Calvin.” Then Calvin starts growing, first into something resembling a couture pasty designed by H.R. Giger, then into a little floppy, translucent starfish. An analysis of his cellular structure reveals that he is “all muscle, all brain, and all eye.” He’s no bigger than a tennis ball when he crumples Hugh’s hand like a soda can and escapes his box in the lab. From there, he keeps finding food, and growing, and picking off the crew one by one.

Those inclined toward this kind of material will likely hold Life up unfavorably against the first Alien movie, which had a similar structure but better characters and more tactile horrors. But while Alien remains untouchable, and the xenomorphs themselves something out of a nightmare, Calvin — especially in his early, ephemeral, blob stage — is much more like something out of my nightmare. The CGI work is both obviously synthetic and vibrantly gross. In the zero-gravity environment, Calvin’s handiwork resembles the victims suspended in the black void from Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. I already used the word “crumple,” but yes, they’re crumpled.

There’s also the proximity to Earth — as the situation gets more dire, help is so close, yet so far. Even this close to home, no one can hear you scream. It would have been nice to have more character time with Jake Gyllenhaal’s David Jordan, who is nearing the record for consecutive days in space and looks like it. When his colleague Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) urges him to return to Earth for a bit, he mumbles, with puppy-dog melancholy, “I like it up here.” Space madness is clearly closing in on him even before the E.T. hijinks commence. Gyllenhaal is in haunted Nightcrawler mode throughout, but is never quite given room in the script to explore the implications of that, other than to set up the dramatic irony of the film’s wicked, if predictable finale.

Life comes to us from a veritable Ryan Reynolds support group: Safe House director Daniel Espinosa and Deadpool writing duo Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, which makes a certain plot point involving Reynolds’s character pretty amusing. But otherwise, there’s little naughty snark here. There’s also not much insight or art to the direction; it’s Alien for short attention spans, Arrival for non-pacifists, with some remnant of ambition toward something headier. On that count, it falls short, but as a final-girl structured horror film, it has plenty of imaginative moments.

Whats most effective, and telling, is how levelheadedly our egghead protagonists handle the alien threat. “Calvin doesn’t hate us,” Hugh says. “He has to kill us in order to survive.” Later, the crew changes its tune: Before the final showdown, one survivor remarks, “I know it’s not scientific, but I feel pure fucking hatred for that thing.” Well, all right. None of this was ever going to be scientific, but it was nice of Life to pretend for a bit.

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Film Review: ‘Life’

Slipping into theaters two months before 'Alien: Covenant,' this slick, suspenseful sci-fi thriller features smart characters making dumb decisions in space.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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'Life' Review: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds Make a Martian Friend

Why is it that practically every time sci-fi characters discover evidence of extraterrestrial life, they are just as swiftly confronted with creative new ways to die? As “we are not alone” scenarios go, “Life” is no exception, although it’s unusually intelligent for so much of its running time — picture white-knuckle “Alien” hijinks grounded by “Gravity”-strong human drama — that the lame-brained last act comes as a real disappointment (unless you’re determined to read this Sony-released Mars-attacks thriller as an origin story for Spider-Man’s Venom nemesis, which it is not).

Still, overlook its inevitable wah-wah ending (cue sad trombone sound effect), and “Life” is far better than the trailers made this me-too outer-space opus look. Assuming that “Passengers” hasn’t quashed audiences’ appetite for space-station movies, and that sci-fi enthusiasts wouldn’t rather simply wait for Ridley Scott’s fast-approaching “Alien: Covenant,” then director Daniel Espinosa ’s mostly-smart, plenty-stylish entry could eke out a nice box-office life.

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At first, the alien being — which is soon christened “Calvin” — appears to be an innocuous, inert single-celled life form, visible only beneath a high-powered microscope. But when lead scientist Hugh Derry (British actor Arlyon Bakare, buff-upper-bodied but CG-withered from the waist down as a disabled doc who doesn’t need his wheelchair in zero gravity) feeds the organism glycerin, it swiftly multiplies, exhibiting characteristics that are a credit to screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick’s creativity: every cell has muscular, neural, and photoreceptive properties, suggesting the potential for an incredibly strong, fast-adapting entity.

To celebrate the discovery, horns blare on Jon Ekstrand’s constantly shape-shifting score (one moment, he’s waxing optimistic with low-key strings, the next, he’s amplifying the tension via “Inception”-style foghorns). Hugh can hardly contain his enthusiasm, though there are other crew members on board to take precautions, most notably Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson, the most disciplined character in the motley ensemble), representing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — because nobody knows what Calvin is capable of, even after he’s attacked Hugh and face-hugged one of the other crew members.

It’s Miranda’s job to design firewalls the alien can’t breach, while it appears to be everyone else’s (unofficial) task to create opportunities for Calvin to get out. This is where a movie that has taken great pains in its stunning first act (a bit pokey for genre fans, but impressive in its willingness to give characters like Gyllenhaal’s Syria-surviving space medic a backstory before snuffing them one by one) makes a gradual turn for the worse. You see, the aptly named “Life” isn’t just about making a landmark discovery that could provide clues to life’s “nature, its origin, and maybe even its meaning”; it’s also about the biological imperative for survival, and the way in which even the cleverest humans will ignore their training in order to prevent their own deaths, and those of the people they care about.

But “Life” isn’t an especially philosophical movie, and it’s weakest when the screenplay pretends to be making protocol-questioning decisions in the heat of the moment. As Miranda could attest, if Calvin turns hostile — and it doesn’t take long for that to happen — the entire crew should be prepared to sacrifice their lives in order to prevent the “symbiote” (to borrow the term used to describe Venom, even though Calvin never lingers long on a human host) from finding its way back to earth. Instead, the characters — and Gyllenhaal’s David Jordan in particular — are so empathetic, they’re constantly opening hatches that should remain locked shut in order to save goner crewmates, or themselves.

On the plus side, such ill-advised and undisciplined behavior serves to boost the suspense considerably, and even though we can never quite get a handle on what Calvin can do — the invertebrate creature can insta-digest an entire rat, withstand prolonged exposure to fire, go long stretches without oxygen, survive in sub-zero space, and propel itself through narrow apertures — one thing is clear: it ain’t friendly. (It also isn’t true to the screenwriters’ concept for long, eventually taking on a multi-tentacled, menacing-squid form that looks like something out of Patrick Tatopoulos’ playbook.)

Fans of “Deadpool” duo Reese and Wernick may be disappointed to find precious few genre-savvy wisecracks in the finished film (though a nerdy “Re-Animator” reference survives). Frankly, “Life” could have used a few more cathartic laughs, although it’s a relief that the entire movie isn’t as self-aware or sarcastic as the writers’ reputation-making “Zombieland.” While that high-attitude approach may have been the right fit for an undead spoof, “Life” benefits from a certain seriousness of tone — one that Swedish-born director Espinosa (“Easy Money”) sustains even when the characters’ choices start to get silly.

We can understand why senior crewmember Sho Murakami (Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, resuscitated from Danny Boyle’s semi-similar “Sunshine”) might risk his life to be reunited with his newborn son on earth, but Espinosa’s heretofore elegant direction suddenly gets sloppy during the climactic moment, when this Toshiro Mifune-like tough guy might have had an “Aliens”-iconic faceoff with Calvin. Weirdly, the only person who behaves in a responsible way is Russian cosmonaut Ekaterina Golovkina (ethereal “Twilight Portrait” star Olga Dihovichnaya, whom more Hollywood directors should cast pronto), but the movie is better served by bad decisions. “Life’s” a thrill when it’s smart, but it’s even more exciting when the characters are dumb — which is ultimately a paradox the film wears proudly, to the possible extinction of the human race.

Reviewed at SXSW Film Festival (closer), March 18, 2017. MPAA Rating: RRunning time: 103 MIN.

Production: A Sony Pictures release of a Columbia Pictures, Skydance presentation of a Skydance production. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya. Producers: David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Bonnie Curtis, and Julie Lynn. Executive producers: Don Granger, Vicki Dee Rock.
Crew: Director: Daniel Espinosa. Screenplay: Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick. Camera (color, widescreen): Seamus McGarvey. Editor: Frances Parker, Mary Jo Markey. Music: Jon Ekstrand.
With: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Olga Dihovichnaya, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare.

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“Life” Is Full of Horrors

What constitutes horror is simply a matter of directorial choice. If the director of a televised football game had cameras and mikes on the field and pushed them up close to injured athletes, an ordinary sporting event would be transformed into a horror film. Surgery is heroic, but the Surgery Channel would be, for many people, unbearable. (That’s the secret of “ The Knick .”) Classic movies, under the strictures of the Hays Code, avoided gore and depicted bloodless shootings in which the sound of gunshots was coupled with actors falling to the stage. This limitation led to a focus on the moral horror of shootings and avoided the visceral revulsion of bloodshed—and, frankly, isn’t that sufficient? (It was sufficient, for instance, in “ Chi-Raq ,” one of the many virtues of Spike Lee’s 2015 masterwork.)

The new science-fiction film “Life,” directed by Daniel Espinosa, is also a horror film. It’s the “Snakes on a Plane” of sci-fi: a movie that hinges on a single idea—if there’s life on Mars, it may not be friendly. Indeed, it may prey upon humans in a way that changes, in a deeply rooted psychological way, our relationship to our bodies, our sense of self, our existence. That kind of resonant insight is rooted in reality and reflected in movies: Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island,” for instance, conveys not the political crisis nor even the fear of death arising from the nuclear-arms race of the postwar years but the existential dread, the sense of a changed relationship to the very notion of life and death, that seeped into the mental fibre of anyone who lived through it—including Scorsese, in childhood.

Espinosa’s film is best during its isolated moments of shock, when it delivers on the promise of the premise: six astronauts aboard the International Space Station have recovered a small soil sample from a damaged Mars probe. In a bio-quarantined laboratory, the chief biologist, Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare), examines the sample, discovers microscopic but inert bodies that resemble cells, and attempts to stimulate them. (“This is some ‘Re-Animator’ shit,” another astronaut responds; jokes follow. The script was written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, of “Deadpool,” and it’s got the patter to prove it.) Stimulate them he does: the cells begin to move, then they reproduce into a sort of silicone-like starfish form that moves with a petal-like grace.

What’s distinctive about the cells, Hugh says, is that they’re undifferentiated—each is muscle, brain, and sensory organs all in one. When the starfish-like thing, called Calvin, grows to the size of a hand, Hugh stimulates it again, gently, this time with electricity—to which it responds by grabbing his gloved hand with its tentacles and, with industrial strength, crushing it, breaking his bones and tearing through his glove. The pilot, Rory (Ryan Reynolds), saves Hugh but gets trapped with Calvin in the isolated chamber, and it attacks him in a singularly macabre way—it slips a tentacle into his mouth, then slides itself all the way down his gullet. (It’s as if Calvin represented the revenge of the “Oldboy” octopus, the nightmare form of the “Arrival” squid.) Not only does Espinosa make Rory’s convulsive death repulsively terrifying, he uses the weightless environment to show the blood and gore floating around his corpse. As for Calvin, it emerges from Rory newly sustained, and the five remaining astronauts realize what’s happening: Calvin simply needs to eat, and they’re the only organic matter around.

Calvin makes no noise; its “body” is a translucent, iridescent white, containing a hint of red filaments. It moves as fast as a bat, leaping strongly, as if flying, and flopping firmly from surface to surface. Nearly formless, it can slip like a mouse through a tiny crack. Calvin escapes the bio-quarantine and, in effect, takes over the spacecraft. As it grows in size, it becomes increasingly voracious, and the plot morphs into a science-fiction version of “And Then There Were None.”

One of the mysteries of Calvin is that it is an entirely unknown quantity—it isn’t clear what Calvin craves (are there foods other than humans that it would prefer?) or what can kill Calvin (if it’s shredded or sliced up, will the pieces survive on their own?). Can it endure extreme heat or extreme cold? Can it drown? (A science-fiction movie is like a board game that discloses its rules in the playing.) And, as the surviving astronauts recognize that Calvin isn’t easily disposed of, they also realize that their principal mission has changed—it’s no longer a matter of their own survival or that of the International Space Station. Rather, they must make sure that Calvin never reaches Earth, and so they must insure that the station, and they themselves, never return to Earth. In effect, they have to sacrifice themselves in order to save humankind.

Unfortunately, Calvin’s monstrosity is revealed early enough in the action that it becomes a tough act to top, and Espinosa shrinks from the unmitigated bodily horror that, say, David Cronenberg might have brought to the project (along with a rating that should come with its own beta-blockers). The movie reduces its fear factor to simple suspense that’s not insignificant but is pretty insubstantial. “Life” is a nineteen-fifties low-budget sci-fi quickie that has its budget ramped up by the presence of a few stars—Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, and Jake Gyllenhaal—alongside the less familiar but amply skilled trio of Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya, and Hiroyuki Sanada. (Bakare’s performance had an admirably radiant ease; it should propel him into some choice leading roles.) Its budget is also, and perhaps especially, boosted by one variety of effect that is the movie’s most sustained pleasure—motion through a weightless environment.

Espinosa’s sense of drama is efficient, familiar, and narrow; if there’s a moral sentiment to his direction, it’s precisely in the limits that he imposes on the movie’s dose of pain and gore. (Cronenberg’s power as a director is his quasi-confessional delight in the depiction of quease-making horrors.) What Espinosa conspicuously enjoys is the sheer kinetic realm. His realization of astronauts floating through the spacecraft, gliding through their artificial atmosphere as if swimming in air, has a simple and giddy delight, which he reinforces with a few long camera moves that sail through the craft along with the astronauts. (He also lends the notion a particular poignancy—Hugh is paraplegic, who moves in the weightless environment with an ease denied him on Earth.)

The movie’s subject, of course, is the potential for menace in nature, the threats potentially unleashed by constructive scientific research. The astronauts and the spectators on Earth, who are glued to their screens watching the apparently successful retrieval mission, celebrate the discovery of the first sign of life in outer space. The response of people back home to the ensuing catastrophe on the space station is never shown, however. The response of scientists on Earth to the discovery of the cell-like particles discovered in the Mars dust is never heard, either.

The blandly but frantically cautionary tale about the dangers of the quest for knowledge depends mainly on a suppression of context—on a lack of discourse, a script that builds its terror not on that quest for knowledge but on the artificial sealing off of the notion that anything is known at all. Instead of talking with scientists on Earth about what’s to be done with the samples, the movie sticks to a story that involves astronauts following “protocols.” In effect, “Life” envisions a space mission to be like a generic movie itself, one that results from a methodical and rigorous conformity to the script. The aesthetic of “Life” is one with its simplistic message; as ever, cinematic form is inseparable from a movie’s substance.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Lots of violence, some language, in well-told alien story.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie is fairly downbeat, but it does have a c

Though the characters are largely victims, they re

Many characters are killed. A character drowns in

A man watches a video feed of his child being born

Several uses of "f--k," plus "mothe

Positive Messages

The movie is fairly downbeat, but it does have a clear theme: "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Positive Role Models

Though the characters are largely victims, they represent an interesting mix of cultures and sexes. Only two characters are American and male; the rest of the diverse ensemble includes two European women, a Japanese man, and a black Englishman who requires a wheelchair while on Earth but gets to float free in space. All are treated as smart individuals, and none are tokens.

Violence & Scariness

Many characters are killed. A character drowns in fluid. Floating globs of blood. A broken, smashed hand. A lab rat is completely mangled and destroyed in a grotesque way. Flame thrower. Monster attacks. Monster eating blood, devouring bodies. Tense, scary moments.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A man watches a video feed of his child being born (not graphic). A joke about "do they know who the father is?"

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k," plus "motherf----r" and "s--t," as well as "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ" (as exclamations).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Life is a sci-fi/horror movie about a killer alien creature loose on board a satellite. There's lots of violence and tense, scary stuff. Many characters are killed; one is torn apart from the inside, with globs of floating blood, and another drowns in fluid. A lab rat is also destroyed in a gruesome way, and a man's hand is smashed and broken. Language is strong, with several uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "'s--t," and "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation). One character watches a video feed of his child being born, though nothing graphic is shown (someone makes a joke about "who's the father?"). Overall, it's too intense for younger or more sensitive teens, but slightly older viewers may enjoy the well-crafted tension. Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds headline a cast that's diverse overall, with smart, realistic characters. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (10)
Kids say (23)

Based on 10 parent reviews

Good space movie

What's the story.

In LIFE, six astronauts are aboard a satellite orbiting Earth as part of the Mars Pilgrim Mission. They retrieve a probe from Mars that contains a microscopic life form from the Red Planet. Biologist Hugh Derry ( Ariyon Bakare ) excitedly studies it, changes atmospheric conditions, and watches it grow at an alarming rate. Then it attacks and escapes, wounding his hand. Another crew member jumps in to intervene, but the creature, called "Calvin," kills him. It's up to the rest of the crew -- including Miranda North ( Rebecca Ferguson ), David Jordan ( Jake Gyllenhaal ), and Sho Kendo ( Hiroyuki Sanada ) -- to try to contain the monster. If they can't, they'll never be able to return to Earth.

Is It Any Good?

This sci-fi creature feature doesn't really do anything we haven't seen before, but its execution -- including smooth camerawork and tense editing and music -- makes it reasonably gripping. In Life , director Daniel Espinosa glides his camera along the corridors of the satellite as if it, too, were weightless, and the crisp editing and the intense score provide plenty of nervous suspense. It's not as dark and shadowy as the similar Alien , but the lights are used to interesting effect.

The characters are also interesting. Not only do they represent a diverse cross-section of cultures and sexes, but they're treated like smart people. No one wanders off alone to check something out, and no one splits up. Generally, the movie avoids the kinds of cliches the genre routinely falls back on. Plus, no one is an invincible hero stepping up to save the day. Even the creature is given credit for being clever -- a worthy adversary. Overall, Life is pretty basic, and it's a familiar story, but any story can feel fresh again when it's told well.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Life 's violence . How gruesome is it? How much blood is shown? How does the movie use violence to generate suspense? Does exposure to violent media make kids more aggressive?

Is the movie scary ? What's the appeal of scary movies/monster movies?

How did you feel about the diverse cast? Did they feel like real people? Were any of them stereotypes ?

Do the characters show courage? What makes someone a hero? What role does sacrifice play in the movie?

What did you learn from the movie about the International Space Station and its history and goals? How does it encourage collaboration across nations?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 24, 2017
On DVD or streaming : June 20, 2017
Cast : Jake Gyllenhaal , Rebecca Ferguson , Ryan Reynolds
Director : Daniel Espinosa
Inclusion Information : Latino directors, Female actors
Studios : Sony Pictures Entertainment , Columbia Pictures
Genre : Science Fiction
Topics : Space and Aliens
Run time : 103 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : language throughout, some sci-fi violence and terror
Last updated : July 12, 2024

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Arts & Entertainment

Movie Review: Life

Jared Shibuya | March 30, 2017

A team of international astronauts discover a new extraterrestrial life form in the space thriller “Life,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds. Curiosity turns to horror when the exponentially growing life form threatens the survival of the crew and life on earth.

Thanks to horror films, some names have been ruined ... or made cool. Photo by Jeswin Thomas from Pexels.

Names horror films have ruined … or made cool

Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate. Photo courtesy of NEON.

He said, she said: ‘Immaculate’

Live from the World Contamination Tour. Photo taken by Penny Howle and courtesy My Chemical Romance.

An alt-girl’s origin story: emo beginnings

One sheet artwork for the film Monkey Man. Photo credit: Universal

He said, she said: ‘Monkey Man’

Pyper Braun as Alice in Imaginary. Photo credit: Parrish Lewis/Lionsgate

He said, she said: ‘Imaginary’

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anonymous // Mar 31, 2017 at 11:17 am

Well the “writer” got lazy on this one. How is this a review? The Orion is a prestigious student run organization and this gets published? This isn’t even a review…

B. Frank // Apr 6, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Click on the link to watch the reviewer. You were a little lazy to not click the link anonymous. The reviewer did a great job.

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‘Life’ Review: ‘Alien’ Meets ‘Gravity’ In Daniel Espinosa’s Derivative Sci-Fi Survival Story

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“ Life ” spends its first act building up some big ideas, but eventually unravels into another monster movie in space. The story follows the crew of the International Space Station on a special mission to find evidence of alien life among dirt samples retrieved by a Mars lander. Believe or not, they find it — which is just enough buildup to unleash a serviceable “Alien” knock-off in disguise.

But that’s not the only sci-fi hit to which “Life” owes its existence. Director Daniel Espinosa (“Safe House”) imbues the otherworldly setting with a visual flair right out of the “Gravity” playbook. The movie opens with mission specialist Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds), who has a penchant for derring-do and always has a one-liner handy, undergoing a spacewalk captured in an ambitious long take. As the camera roves through the zero-gravity corridors of the station, peeking out windows at the black void, we meet the rest of the crew. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been in space longer than any human ever, and he seems to prefer it there. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) is a microbiologist who maybe knows a bit more about the mission than David, so they naturally clash later on.

READ MORE: The 2017 IndieWire SXSW Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival Once the dirt samples are loaded onboard, lead scientist Hugh (Ariyon Bakare) slaps them under a microscope and quickly discovers a dormant single-celled organism. That’s just enough information for the media frenzy to begin back on Earth, where celebrations are ubiquitous, and the whole crew takes part in remote interviews. A schoolgirl in Times Square dubs the little cell “Calvin,” and the name takes off; soon, so does the critter. After Hugh figures out the exact atmosphere to create in his miniature lab, Calvin wakes up, starts wiggling around…and begins to grow from one little cell into many more. After a mishap puts Calvin into a deep hibernation, Hugh tries to revive him with electricity, inadvertently creating his own Frankenstein’s monster. It doesn’t take much time for Calvin to go from slimy little starfish to rampaging monstrosity wreaking havoc across the ship.

Despite the hard science that dominates its first act, once “Life” careens into a brash survival story, it never slows down. As Calvin demolishes much of the space station, it’s just a matter of waiting to see who can survive the longest while figuring out how to smoke out the growing alien beast. They have no weapons that can work against him, and no way to reason with him, so the movie’s remaining entertainment value revolves around how the survivors can come up with clever traps before time runs out.

Gyllenhaal feels right at home in this bleak sci-fi setting, with a frantic performance reminiscent of his turn in “Source Code.” Whenever his David talks about life on Earth we get a brief respite from the pulsing action scenes. His memories of the war in Syria that propelled him into space work —where he doesn’t have to deal with the atrocities down below — strike a surprisingly poignant note. By contrast, Reynolds provides some much-needed levity, delivering his now-signature quips. Riding high on “Deadpool” fame, he’s clearly found his groove.

From a purely technical perspective, “Life” hits the market standard for impressive effects work across the board. However, its narrative can’t keep pace. The script, by “Deadpool” writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, makes a few valiant stabs at depth — David’s memories of Syria and a tasteful invocation of Challenger explosion come to mind among them — but it’s also mired by dopier bits. Setting aside plausibility issues (including the ability of one scientist to activate a sleeping Martian cell within 48 hours of discovering it), “Life” suffers from a pileup of unimaginative babbling once the action scenes take off, including two different characters yelling “Fuck this!” at different moments in the same scene.

Every other bit of audio is a feast for the ears. In one mesmerizing sequence, fragments of the ship crumble into a tornado of glass and metal as seemingly ever crushed fiber makes an audible crunch. Composer Jon Ekstrand’s score is appropriately manic for a movie that develops its claustrophobia as it moves along. During the chaotic finale, the music shifts into an ironic waltz — a welcome nod to “2001: A Space Odyssey” — that plays against the destruction with wonderfully cinematic results. It’s one of several moments that indicate the intentions of a filmmaker desperate to push the material beyond the limitations of a traditional horror movie in space. But no matter how much trickery Espinosa throws into the frame, “Life” remains tethered to familiar terra firma.

“Life” premiered as the closing night selection of the 2017 SXSW Film Festival. It opens theatrically March 24.

Most Popular

'Life' Isn't DOA, According to Movie Critics

Who could have predicted Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal in space would go over so well?

The latest killer-alien-interacts-with-hapless-humanity sci-fi horror movie, Daniel Espinosa’s Life , is getting some pleasantly surprising reviews from critics. Life , which premieres on March 24, follows the story of a multi-national group of scientists and researchers aboard the International Space Station as they receive a sample from Mars that proves the existence of, well, life on the red planet. Turns out, the single-celled organism named Calvin is actually the remains of a terrifying alien bent on destruction. Despite the (literal) Alien -esque trope, or perhaps, because of it, Life is racking up some good reviews.

This post may contain spoilers for Life .

Life gained a lot of popularity online even before the reviews started rolling in when one Reddit user pointed out a reused shot from Spider-Man 3 in one of the Life trailers and posed that maybe (just maybe) Life was going to be a Venom prequel. After all, Sony is actually making a Venom movie , and a sneak-attack starring Ryan Reynolds of Deadpool fame was just too good an opportunity for the internet not to speculate over.

But since Life very clearly is not a Venom prequel, the mostly positive reviews focus more on the film’s dedication to its genre, among other things.

The Playlist gave the film a solid B, commending it for sticking to a classic sci-fi trope so closely while still racking up “technical accomplishments” on a lower budget than, say, 2013’s Gravity .

What makes “Life” genuinely shocking is that it adheres so closely to the formula without deviation, reinvention, or reflection. It’s simply a murderous-alien-on-a-spaceship movie. That’s it. And, it turns out, that’s okay.

And despite the supposed simplicity of the plot, iO9 allows that “while that most basic plotline does describe what happens — Life is the smartest, sharpest version of man vs. ET to come along in a long while.”

The core question that audiences tend to have when engaging with first-encounter science-fiction is generally, “Why are these ultra-smart/tough/competent people making stupid decisions?” The characters in Life never feel like they’re being dunderheads, though, because their situational and psychological motivations are sketched out so well that the actions feel very believable… When it comes to the science on display and the conceptualization of the characters, Life feels refreshingly grounded… We might be our own worst enemies right now but Life reminds us that there’s probably something even worse out amongst the stars if that ever stops being the case.

Uproxx could barely talk about anything other than the film’s similarity to the original Alien :

This is an obvious homage, but it’s a good one. It felt purposely claustrophobic and it was scary and it has a nifty sort of twist at the end that was genuinely disturbing… No one will do the “alien kills people on a spaceship” genre better than Ridley Scott did in Alien. Most sensible people will agree on this. But that doesn’t stop Life from being a pretty good, and scary, reimagining of this scenario.

Variety instructed audiences to overlook “the inevitable wah-wah ending (cue sad trombone sound effect), and ‘Life’ is far better than the trailers made this me-too outer-space opus look.”

But “Life” isn’t an especially philosophical movie, and it’s weakest when the screenplay pretends to be making protocol-questioning decisions in the heat of the moment… “Life’s” a thrill when it’s smart, but it’s even more exciting when the characters are dumb — which is ultimately a paradox the film wears proudly, to the possible extinction of the human race.

Finally, The Hollywood Reporter is one of the few outlets to give Life a flatly bad rating — so far, at least:

The picture struggles to find a satisfying rhythm as the members of this multinational, co-ed team get slooshed up by Calvin or suffer related lethal mishaps. Each dies valiantly; few enjoy a moment of glory. And then there were two — heroes whose names won’t be revealed here, who face that familiar challenge: Destroy this vessel before its extraterrestrial inhabitant can make its way to the blue planet below. Genre fans won’t be too shocked by the way that plays out. But most would be quite surprised if Life’s hints at a sequel lead to even a single spinoff, much less the decades-long afterlife enjoyed by Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon’s versatile face-hugger.

Life premieres in theaters on March 24.

Science Fiction

"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME

Life | 2017 | R | - 1.7.7

SEX/NUDITY 1 - We briefly see a pregnant woman with a very swollen belly under a long gown on a tablet screen as she grunts and groans in labor and we later see a baby in a blanket; a man jokes with the father, asking him who the real father is.

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man is grabbed by a squid creature around an ankle and unsuccessfully tries to burn it with a light stick; he shoots a blow torch assembly at a creature several times without harming it and it drops from a ceiling onto his head and its tentacles extend from around the back of the man's head and enter his mouth as he gasps and gags (bubbles of blood pop out of the man's mouth, followed by larger blobs of blood vomited out); the creature slithers out of the mouth, larger than when it went in and the man is shown dead as the animal squiggles into the air ducts and vents of the space station. ► A man wears gloves to shock a small creature with a thin electrode through a plastic barrier; we see sparks and the creature begins moving, then the man begins to scream and grimace in pain as the creature extends a tentacle and grabs and crushes the screaming man's hand (we hear bones crunching); after a struggle, the man removes his hand, which appears boneless and flopping, red, and bruised in close-up. ► A large white rat is constantly held in a harness by metal cables attached to the floor of its glass cage; a squid creature enters the cage, touches the rat's head, engulfs it, sucks off the skin, sucks the blood of the screeching rat, and swallows it (we see bare muscles) in a few seconds in close-up. ► A squid-like creature crawls around inside a paralyzed man's pant leg, a woman opens the seam and the creature bursts out, knocking her into a bulkhead; the man becomes unresponsive and a man and a woman administer defibrillating shocks four times to revive him and he then dies while floating in the room. ► A squid-like creature puts a tentacle inside the mouth of a dead man, and blood floats out toward the camera. A man lures a squid-like creature into an escape capsule and launches to deep space, the creature slams against the man, and shoots reptilian spikes out of its head into the walls of the capsule; we later see the capsule land in a sea and two fishermen open the hatch. ► A woman goes on a repair spacewalk and tumbles hard against the side of a space station several times; she opens a valve and a squid creature rushes out and grabs her ankle and leg, puncturing her coolant system and releasing toxic chemicals into her helmet as she tries to reach an entrance hatch while a man inside directs her to push a lever and she pushes it the wrong way; we see her die as she floats with her eyes open. ► A man pursued by a squid-like creature locks himself into a sleeping pod; the creature bangs its head against the glass and squeezes the cover with its tentacles, the man exits the pod setting off alarms and he struggles with the creature until they push through a hatch and float off into space (the man is presumed dead). ► A man tires to kill a squid-like creature with a defibrillation charge, to no effect. A creature breaks a part of an electrode off a cable and punctures a glove attached to its glass cage, escaping. A man and a woman struggle with a squid-like creature and they go deeper into the station as we see debris floating past them, some floating out a broken window. ► A man and a woman on a space station see a spacecraft attach to the station; it pushes the station toward deep space, then breaks apart and falls into two arms of the station as we see flames and sparks. A man on a spacewalk ducks away as a large space probe slaps into a robotic arm nearby. ► A single celled animal has hairs that grow into grasping whips or combine to form short flappers and long tentacles as the animal grows quickly into a creature like a starfish and then like a squid or octopus with a dragon's head formed by a clump of petal-like appendages on the neck; it is over six feet long when it is full grown and it screeches as a young animal almost like laughter and as an adult it makes no sound. ► Most scenes occur inside a dimply lit, cramped space station that contains many dark corners and shadows; a crew of six locks themselves into a small compartment in one scene, sweating and one man gasps for air. Three people get into sleep pods that look like glass-covered coffins. ► Two men and two women shout and curse for several seconds at one another about what to do and some of their words are indistinguishable. A man slams a lab door shut and yells and a woman yells. We hear that each cell in a lifeform is both brain and muscle. A man says that creatures like the one they have discovered probably killed all the life on Mars in the past. A man says twice, "We need to kill it." A woman in an escape capsule screams uncontrollably as she is launched into space. A man mentions that he saw bombed out cities in Syria. A woman tells a man that his radiation exposure is at an unsafe level. ► Two people lock themselves into a compartment and find that they have two hours left of life support and only 39 minutes until re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and burning to death. A space station falls into a decaying orbit, about to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. ► A man who was attacked by a creature groans and whimpers and we see a bandage around his damaged hand for the remainder of the film. A man is shown to be paralyzed from the waist down and we see his withered legs when wearing his space suit and shorts (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). Men and women wrap a dead man's body in foil and we see the body later, lying against a bulkhead with dried blood on its mouth and chin. A woman picks at her little finger until it bleeds tiny droplets that float toward the camera; a squid creature eats the droplets and we see from its point of view. ► We briefly see a space station toilet, but no one uses it.

LANGUAGE 7 - About 25 F-words and its derivatives, 6 scatological terms, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (thing, bastard, ugly, blood filled buckets of meat, Re-Animator), exclamations (shut-up, shoot), 4 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh God, Holy [scatological term deleted], Jesus).

SUBSTANCE USE - A man tells another man that the second man is drunk on examining a space creature.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Extraterrestrial life, monsters, space exploration, international cooperation, astronauts, science, discovery, sentience, danger, fear, extinction of humanity, safety, protecting others, duty, government sacrifice of individuals, anger, anxiety, courage, sacrifice, teamwork, faulty thinking, making mistakes, claustrophobic places.

MESSAGE - We may find that not all life in the universe is nice.

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated , Special , Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.

REVIEWS See ratings & reviews at Critics.com

WEB LINKS Official Site IMDb

FILTER by RATINGS Did you know you can now filter searches by any combination of ratings? Just go to our search page or use the search bar, with or without a keyword, from the top navigation menu. Move sliders from 0-10 in any combination, check and uncheck MPAA ratings and use keywords to further filter results -- please let us know what you think.

THE ASSIGNED NUMBERS Unlike the MPAA we do not assign one inscrutable rating based on age but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY , VIOLENCE/GORE & LANGUAGE on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest depending on quantity & context | more |

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Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds fight for their lives in 'Life' trailer

See the creepy extended footage in a new trailer, dropped during the Super Bowl, for the sci-fi thriller "Life."

During Sunday's big game , Sony dropped a new trailer showing even more scary footage from its sci-fi horror film "Life."

" Life " shows what happens when the six-member crew of the International Space Station discovers the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. But the life form proves more intelligent than anyone ever expected, and the crew members' lives could well be in danger.

The movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Olga Dihovichnaya and Hiroyuki Sanada.

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Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds just achieved another step in their careers aside from being one of the most iconic Hollywood pairs. Since Blake’s It Ends With Us film is at the top of the weekend box office and Ryan’s Deadpool & Wolverine is now in second place, this makes them the first couple with top box office hits in the same year since Demi Moore and Bruce Willis .

In 1990, Bruce’s movie Die Hard 2 and Demi’s Ghost premiered just weeks apart from each other. Both premiered at the top of the box office, with Ghost earning more than $217 million domestically and Die Hard 2 ended up with $117 million, per Box Office Mojo . Currently, It Ends With Us has earned more than $50 million so far, while Deadpool & Wolverine has racked up more than $490 million since its July 26 premiere.

Ex-spouses Demi, 61, and Bruce, 69, first met in 1987 and tied the knot that year. Eventually, they welcomed their daughters, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah before divorcing in 2000. Although their marriage didn’t last, the two actors have remained close friends. Demi has also helped keep the family morale amid Bruce’s current battle with frontotemporal dementia. The Glass star’s family announced in 2022 that the actor had stepped away from filming more movies due to health issues .

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively hold the #1 and #2 spots at the box-office this weekend. They produce and star in ‘DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE’ and ‘IT ENDS WITH US’ respectively. pic.twitter.com/10AaDnS0jv — Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) August 11, 2024

Earlier this year, Demi spoke about her former husband’s illness during an appearance on Good Morning America . While maintaining their family’s privacy, the A Few Good Men actress noted that her and Bruce’s children are her primary focus.

“What I’ll share is what I say to my children,” Demi said, adding, “Which (is) it’s important to just meet them where they’re at and not hold onto what isn’t, but what is, because there’s great beauty and sweetness and loving and joy out of that.”

As for Blake, 36, and Ryan, 47, the spouses have been busy with their careers and in raising their children, James, Inez, Betty and Olin. The couple — who have been married since 2012 — are known for their hilarious public banter , either on a red carpet or via social media. However, they’ve also made it abundantly clear how much they love each other. Ahead of the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere last month, Blake shared an on-set Instagram photo of her and Ryan kissing.

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Ryan Reynolds’ Best Movies, Ranked

With 'Deadpool & Wolverine' now in theaters, The Hollywood Reporter looks back at Reynolds' classic hits.

By Richard Newby

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Ryan Reynolds has remained one of Hollywood’s most popular actors for nearly 20 years. He’s developed a likable public persona, become a master marketer and entrepreneur, made close friends with the kind of Hollywood talent many people would sell a necessary organ for — and he’s married to Blake Lively.

Yet, that popularity often comes with the question of the quality of his filmography. And yes, it has its share of misses. But in watching every Ryan Reynolds movie from Coming Soon (2000) to IF (2004), I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe: Reynolds as an amnesiac god married to Melissa Mcarthy and posing as a TV writer; I watched him play a beloved school teacher with terminal cancer in an ABC family movie; I saw him switch places with Jason Bateman after peeing in a magic fountain; witnessed him as a novelist grieving the death of his mother played by Julia Roberts, all under the eye of his abusive father played by Willem Dafoe.

But I digress, because I discovered that even his not-best movies are made immensely more watchable simply by his presence. And that’s the thing when it really comes down to it. He’s not an actor who could be described as a chameleon — though he’s shown more layers across his career than he often gets credit for, and one of his best performances was in the so-so movie The Captive (2014), which was released to DirecTV. But he’s a welcome presence even at the lowest points in his filmography. And at the highest points, he’s an agile improviser and a force that will keep you on your toes. And that’s true, regardless of whether he’s gleefully decapitating villains or struggling to escape the coffin he’s been buried in underground. Ryan Reynolds is an immensely watchable actor, even if the reason why isn’t always quantifiable.

With the release of his passion project, Deadpool & Wolverine , I take a look back at his best movies and offer the ranking below.

13. Life (2017)

I find it hard to resist a well-crafted B-movie with an all-star cast, and Daniel Espinosa’s Life certainly fits the mold. Sure, it’s a riff on Alien (1979). But it wasn’t the first and won’t be the last. Following the success of Deadpool (2016), screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese re-teamed with Ryan Reynolds for this sci-fi horror film that sees the crew of an international space station discover a rapidly evolving lifeform on Mars, which they dub Calvin. Reynolds along with Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya portray scientists whose study of Calvin quickly becomes a horrific, bloody situation that literally grows beyond their control.

While Reynolds was heavily featured in the marketing, his character Rory Adams meets a gruesome end early on. Despite this, the actor still leaves an impression, and his character’s death not only pulls the film into a more serious direction (the time for jokes being noticeably over in Rory’s absence), but adds a certain sense of shock value in the notion that no one, even the film’s biggest stars, are safe. Life is a good reminder that sometimes Reynolds’s smaller, supporting roles are just as, if not more, effective than the films that put him in the lead. In films like this, he serves as a bit of extra seasoning to keep things spicy.

12. The Adam Project (2022)

Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam and Walker Scobell as Young Adam in The Adam Project.

While everyone has varying opinions about the wide array of Netflix films in terms of quality — whether they should be played theatrically and who the target audience is — The Adam Project is one of Netflix’s better original, non-award season-centric films. Shawn Levy’s second collaboration with Ryan Reynolds, following 2021’s Free Guy , further proved the two were a great match for each other’s sensibilities, balancing humor and heart. While Free Guy has a bigger canvas to play with, The Adam Project is what sold me on Levy handling Deadpool & Wolverine .

When a fighter pilot from the future, Adam Reed (Reynolds), steals a time jet and crash lands in 2022, he encounters his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell) who is dealing with the loss of his father, Louis (Mark Ruffalo), and the growing dissonance he’s created with his mother, Ellie (Jennifer Garner). To save his wife, Laura (Zoe Saldaña), Adam must find and stop Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) a scientist who worked alongside Louis, and in the future becomes the dictator of a dystopia. The dynamic between Reynolds and Scobell creates a fun back-and-forth, essentially becoming a buddy movie between a young and older version of the same character. As fun as that dynamic is, and the ensuing sci-fi spectacle, The Adam Project ’s biggest strength is its sincerity. Despite Reynolds’ trademark brand of sarcasm and self-deprecating humor, the standout moment is when he has a conversation with his mom, who unbeknownst to her, is her future son. There’s a genuine emotional engine behind this film. And that ending? Get out the tissues.

11. Detective Pikachu (2019)

The first thing you think of when you consider that famous yellow cutie that the Pokémon brand was built from probably isn’t Ryan Reynolds. His initial casting as Pikachu, for which he lent his voice and face via motion capture, was initially met with understandable confusion and a share of derision. But somehow, against all odds, it works. A gumshoe Pikachu with missing memories, teaming up with a failed Pokémon trainer, Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), and a cub reporter, Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton), to uncover a city-wide conspiracy is the kind of clever, special effects heavy take on the neo-noir that makes the film appealing for more than just Pokémon fans.

I couldn’t count the names of Pokémon characters I know on one hand, and I didn’t go into this movie as a fan. Yet, I found Rob Letterman’s film to be an engaging fantasy-mystery, and Reynolds’ performance to be a breezy and grounding element in a film entirely set in a lore-heavy fictional reality. As far as video game adaptations go, Detective Pikachu is one of the best, and it doesn’t get overly caught up in minutiae, instead allowing the cast and audience to simply focus on delivering a good time within the framework of a silly, but no less endearing, concept. And as for a bit of film trivia, before Reynolds accepted the role, Hugh Jackman was on WB’s shortlist to voice Pikachu — but he wasn’t quite ready to don the yellow just yet.

10. Woman in Gold (2015)

Simon Curtis’ biographical drama is a far cry from the other films on this list. It’s a far cry from anything in Ryan Reynolds’ career. While the film’s marketing presented a sleepy drama, Woman in Gold is a true underdog story that reflects an aspect of the Holocaust and Jewish history we don’t typically see in films. Reynolds plays Randy Schoenberg, a struggling young lawyer whose mother presents him with the opportunity to help her friend, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren), a Jewish refugee from Austria who seeks to recover Gustav Klimt’s famous painting of her aunt — Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I — which resided in her house as a child before the Nazis came and stole it.

Since that time, the painting has become a tourist attraction and symbol of Austrian culture, whose government refuses to acknowledge that culture has been built on Nazi theft from Jews. Altmann and Schoenberg not only fight against the Austrian government, but manage to take Altmann’s claim to what is rightfully hers to the Supreme Court. In Woman in Gold , it’s Reynolds’ turn to play the straight man against Mirren’s disarming humor and barely suppressed rage over the life that has been stolen from her. Yet, even in playing the straight man, Reynolds shows off his emotional capacity as Schoenberg deals with his own Jewish heritage and comes to see Altmann’s plight as more than just a job, but as a means to connect with a past and legacy he felt disconnected from. Woman in Gold is an amazing story that showcases the importance of art, not simply for the sake of beauty, but what it means in terms of identity and keeping a culture that was very nearly wiped out, alive.

9. Free Guy (2021)

Ryan Reynolds as Guy and Lil Rel Howery as Buddy in 20th Century Studios’ FREE GUY.

Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds’ first collaboration resulted in a surprise summer hit and a win for original films (even considering the film’s many references and Easter eggs to other franchise properties). Set in the world of Massive Multiplayer Online video game (MMO), Free City, Reynolds stars as Guy, a non-playable character who breaks the pattern of his programming to help game designer Millie Rusk (Jodie Comer), whose in-game character avatar Molotov Girl has captured Guy’s attention and heart. Rusk’s source code for the game she created, Life Itself, alongside her creative partner Keys (Joe Kerry), was stolen by CEO Antwan Hovachelik (Taika Waititi) to build Free City, which he plans to replace with Free City 2, effectively erasing Guy, who he’s convinced is a glitch in the system.

It’s a film tailor-made for the video game generation that has grown up with The Sims, Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite , and all the upgrades and mods that stem from playing in those worlds. While the film plays fast and loose with the comedy, and not all of it works, Reynolds is a standout as an ordinary guy with a crush on a video game avatar who is so much cooler than he is. There are some surface-level considerations of free will and the ownership of intellectual property, but at its heart, Free Guy is a high-concept, feel-good popcorn movie with two strong performances by Reynolds and Comer, dazzling special effects and the best use of Maria Carey outside of Beau is Afraid (2023).

8. Finder’s Fee (2001)

Finder's Fee, Erik Palladino, Dash Mihok, Matthew Lillard, Ryan Reynolds, 2001

Did you know that before he became the host of Survivor, Jeff Probst was a filmmaker? I certainly didn’t. His debut feature (of two), which he also wrote, centers on a group of friends, Tepper (Erik Palladino), Quigley (Ryan Reynolds), Fishman (Matthew Lillard) and Bolan (Dash Mihok) who get together for a weekly poker night. The rules are simple: Everyone contributes a lottery ticket to the pot, and no one checks the numbers until the game is over.

But on this particular night, the night Tepper plans to propose to his girlfriend Carla (Carly Pope), despite his financial returns, he finds a wallet on the street outside of his apartment. And inside that wallet is the winning lottery ticket for $6 million. He calls the owner of the wallet, Avery Phillips (James Earl James), who shows up to collect what’s his. But before he does, Tepper decides to keep the lotto ticket for himself. When Avery asks to stay and play a hand, while the storm rages outside, Tepper begins to grow suspicious if Avery knows what he took. The night takes a turn towards paranoia, as the friends who all have personal grievances with one another begin to chip away at each other, while a cop, Officer Campbell (Robert Forester), searches the apartment building for an escaped convict. Reynolds’ Quigly, who seems disaffected by what’s happening around him, but always watchful, ups the stakes with a hand that changes the entire scenario and brings this kettle-pot thriller to a boil. Finder’s Fee is a tense and twisty chamber drama, and while it’s become hard to track down, it’s certainly worth the effort to find and watch it.

7. Smokin’ Aces (2006)

Smokin' Aces, Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, 2006.

Joe Carnahan’s cult action thriller weaves a violent, frenetic and downright psychotic tale of the hunt for magician-turned-wannabe gangster-turned-informant Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven), holed up in a hotel in Lake Tahoe with a one-million-dollar bounty on his head. Protected by FBI special agents Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta), Aces awaits extraction by bail bondsman Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck) and his lawyer Rip Reed (Jason Bateman). Of course, extraction isn’t easy, as a horde of colorful assassins ranging from a trio of neo-Nazi brothers (Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Maury Sterling), a Spanish merc (Nestor Carbonell), a Hungarian hitman and master of disguise (Tommy Flanagan), and a duo of contract killers (Alicia Keys, Taraji P. Henson) all cross paths in the effort to claim Aces’ head for mob boss Primo Sparazza (Joseph Ruskin).

Smokin’ Aces is chaotic in the best way and stuffed to the brim with a who’s who of big name and character actors. Filled with twists, reveals and unexpected deaths, Reynolds’ Messner remains the center, holding all the rest together. His efforts to remain a good cop amid all the chaos and senseless death tests the strength of the badge he carries, and he becomes increasingly bloodied, beleaguered and disassociated from the job. It’s quite remarkable that Reynolds, at this still-early point in his career, can own the screen and remain compelling despite the host of colorful personalities, wild accents and bold character choices. He’s not without humor. But his sardonic tone and constant feeling of frustration feel like a precursor to the characteristics he would take on as Deadpool.

6. Definitely, Maybe (2008)

DEFINITELY, MAYBE, from left: Abigail Breslin, Ryan Reynolds, 2008

And now for something a little calmer. While recent years have seen Ryan Reynolds step away from the rom-com arena — except for the wiggle-room of Deadpool — the 2000s placed him in a sweet spot. These rom-coms ranged from the low-point of Buying the Cow (2002) to hits like The Proposal (2009), further solidifying his status as a leading man. But one of his best from this era is Adam Brooks’ unconventional rom-com, Definitely, Maybe , which is like a streamlined version of How I Met Your Mother , with far fewer detours and a satisfying ending.

Amid being served divorce papers, political consultant Will Hayes (Reynolds) is asked by his daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), to tell her the story of how he met her mother, in the hopes that her father will realize what made him fall in love with her in the first place and save his marriage. So, Will tells her the story of his three defining relationships, changing the women’s names, and leaving his daughter to guess which of the three — Emily (Elizabeth Banks), April (Isla Fisher) and Summer (Rachel Weisz) — is her mother. As he illuminates how these relationships evolved and defined him over two decades, he finds himself falling in love again, though not in the way his daughter expected. There’s a real sense of vulnerability to Reynolds in this movie, and he isn’t playing the wise-ass like he has in many of his other roles. He excels at playing both a father and a romantic whose personal ambitions often conflict with his heart’s. Love might be a journey, but Definitely, Maybe is certainly a trip worth taking.

5. Just Friends (2005)

And on the subject of Ryan Reynolds’ rom-coms, Roger Kumble’s Just Friends (2005) is his funniest. In this Christmas-set movie, music producer Chris Brander (Reynolds) returns to his hometown for the holidays and reconnects with his teenage crush Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart), who once, very publicly, friend-zoned him. Reynolds’ acerbic humor is out in full force here, and he plays up Chris’ never-ending series of frustrations and embarrassments well. Chris struggles to win Jamie’s affection, while another former classmate, Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein), also vies for her heart. Chris’ plans are further complicated by the arrival of chaotic, chronically drunk pop star Samantha James (Anna Faris), who he had a previous relationship with.

As good as Reynolds is here, the real star is Farris, who is laugh-out-loud funny and steals every scene she’s in. A Samantha James spinoff feels like one of the great missed opportunities of 2000s cinema. As much laughter as there is to get out of the film, Just Friends is still a product of its time, and not all of the jokes have aged well (there’s a cringe-worthy overuse of a homophobic slur). But despite its flaw, Just Friends is a film with its heart in the right place that isn’t afraid to call out the bullshit idea of guys thinking the girl they’re interested in owe them anything, even in the face of its happy ending.

4. Waiting… (2005)

Waiting, Ryan Reynolds, Justin Long, 2005

Rob McKittrick’s cult comedy about the trials and tribulations of working in the food service industry has achieved an almost legendary status for anyone who has ever had to serve the public. It’s a DVD passed between friends. It’s the go-to reference by a co-worker after an awful day. And it was my introduction to Ryan Reynolds and his particular brand of humor.

Set during a single work shift at the restaurant Shenaniganz, Waiting… follows the hijinks and mishaps of a regular day, complete with unrequited crushes, annoying customers and all the bullshit that the employees can get into to fight off the tedium of their jobs. These are the people who spit in your food (and much worse, as the film eagerly showcases). This is the story of a lost generation who measure time only in the form of the next shift. Dean (Justin Long), an employee for four years, contemplates the assistant manager position he’s been offered while regretting his decision to drop out of college after hearing his former classmate immediately got a job right after graduation. Alongside his gross-out humor-infatuated co-worker Monty (Reynolds), Dean shows the new hire, Mitch (John Francis Daley), the ins and outs of the service industry. Meanwhile, Monty fights off the jealous affections of his two co-workers, Serena (Anna Farris) and Natasha (Vanessa Lengies).

Featuring a who’s who of comedians including David Koechner, Luis Guzman, Dane Cook and Andy Milonakis, Waiting … is an artifact of a very specific era in comedy movies, where indie filmmakers and young actors were on the rise and raked against the studio comedies of the moment. No, the film isn’t a critical darling. But it’s certainly acquired a fanbase over the years as a millennial-defining hang-out movie that accurately captures the vibe of the mid-2000s when it felt like we were just stupidly waiting for something to happen.

3. Deadpool (2016)

Tim Miller’s Deadpool felt like a breath of fresh air when it hit the cinemas in 2016. After a decade-plus of noble heroes guided by strict moral compasses and impassioned speeches, Deadpool let loose with profane, self-aware anti-hero Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds). While it was another origin story, Deadpool mixed up the structure, inter-splicing Wilson’s past alongside his present-day hunt for the man who turned him into a monster, Ajax (Ed Skrein). While the limitations of its budget are visible, and noted by Deadpool himself, there is an almost independent sensibility to the film given that the journey to screen was largely a labor of love from Reynolds, who’d spent 12 years trying to get the film off the ground.

Not only did the film come at the perfect point in superhero cinema, where narratives were becoming larger, darker and a bit unwieldy for some audiences, but it also gave Reynolds a high-profile boost after a series of studio disappointments. Deadpool felt like the film Reynolds’s whole career had been leading him to, and his theatrical knockdowns, as well as his growth as an actor on the indie front in the early to mid-2010s, proved to be essential to his ability to deliver on a role like Deadpool, equal parts raunchy humor and heart. While not strictly a romantic comedy, Wilson’s relationship with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is the driving force of the movie and makes Deadpool’s actions in that effort to get back to her all the more worthwhile. Just like the pineapple olive pizza Wade Wilson orders at the beginning, Deadpool is a pleasing mixture of sweet and salty that hits the spot.

2. Deadpool 2 (2019)

There’s always been some audience debate between Deadpool and Deadpool 2 over which one is better. While both are triumphs and high points in Ryan Reynolds’ career for a myriad of different reasons, the edge goes to Deadpool 2 . David Leitch’s film is an expression of loss and empathy. While those qualities may seem to run counter to a film in which a foul-mouthed anti-hero is dismembering people, and watching his hastily assembled X-Force get dispatched in gruesome ways, they aren’t.

Following Vanessa’s murder, Deadpool slips into a deep, self-destructive depression. The only problem is that self-destruction is pretty hard to manifest for a guy with a healing factor who can’t die. In the process of saving an abused mutant kid, Russell (Julian Dennison), Deadpool runs afoul of the time-traveling mutant Cable (Josh Brolin), who plans to kill Russell for what the kid will do in the future. Accompanied by the luck-powered mutant, Domino (Zazie Beetz), Deadpool finds a reason to live again and fashions his own legacy. It’s not the one the X-Men , represented by Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) envision for him, but it fits Deadpool’s complicated sense of morals, fourth-wall-breaking humor and meta-knowledge. There’s a confidence to Reynolds in Deadpool 2 , one that is apparent even behind the mask, and after a few false starts in the comic book world — Blade: Trinity (2004), Green Lantern (2011) and R.I.P.D. (2013) — Deadpool feels like Reynolds securing a career legacy set to stand the test of time.

1. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan, Dogpool, and Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson in Marvel Studios' DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE.

The third Deadpool movie pulls out all the stops, and Reynolds finally gets to play out the team-up he’s dreamed of since the beginning: Deadpool & Wolverine. After retiring from the role after Logan (2017), Hugh Jackman unsheathes the claws again, this time as a variant version of Wolverine complete with his signature yellow costume. While Shawn Levy’s film does allow the Merc with the Mouth to play around with MCU concepts, notably the TVA, the film is largely situated in the world of the first two Deadpool films, along with The Void, a multiversal dumping ground introduced in the Disney+ series Loki.

Restraint is never something you’d expect from a Deadpool film, yet Deadpool & Wolverine is largely self-contained, to the movie’s advantage, providing plenty of time for Deadpool and Wolverine to get to know each other… violently. Reynolds goes a mile a minute in this film, a hyper-active Bugs Bunny who leaves no fourth wall unbusted , no joke untold and no drop of blood unspilled . It’s as if the six-year gap between this entry and the last one left him with a plethora of pent-up energy that explodes on the screen here. And yet, Reynolds’ greatest secret weapon remains in those instances when the jokes stop and he gives us a look at the sad, broken man Wade Wilson is. A man looking for purpose. And it’s that x-factor that makes Deadpool’s team-up with Wolverine so satisfying. These are men who hurt people as a means to suffocate the hurt they feel. And only by coming together, are they allowed to heal.

Honorable Mentions: Mississippi Grind (2015), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Voices (2014), Buried (2010).

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Screen Rant

“i am very proud of my work”: blake lively saying ryan reynolds wrote it ends with us scene addressed by screenwriter.

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It Ends With Us: Why Colleen Hoover's 2016 Book Is So Controversial

How it ends with us made so much at the box office despite its 59% rotten tomatoes score, blake lively's new romance movie triples its budget in just 3 days [global box office update].

It Ends With Us screenwriter Christy Hall addresses whether one key scene from the movie was written by Ryan Reynolds.
Reynolds is Blake Lively's real-life husband.
Reynolds did contribute to a scene in It Ends With Us , adding small moments that Hall perceived as improvisations from the actors.

Blake Lively's claim that Ryan Reynolds wrote a scene in It Ends With Us is addressed by one of the film's writers. It Ends With Us is a romance film based on the popular (yet controversial) Colleen Hoover novel of the same name. The film ages up the young adult characters from the book, casting Lively in the lead role of Lily opposite Justin Baldoni's Ryle. Baldoni also directed the film.

Speaking with People , the movie's screenwriter Chirsty Hall speaks about whether Reynolds played a role in writing for It Ends With Us . Relating to the scene in question, Hall notes that she is " very proud of [her] work " and believes that " the beats that needed to be honored in that scene are preserved ." She goes on to explain that there were moments that she thought were " improvised ." These " few little flourishes " are what she now realized may have been written by Reynolds , a discovery that she embraces. Check out the full quote from Hall below:

I am very proud of my work, and I do feel like the beats that needed to be honored in that scene are preserved and they're there. Again, Colleen did it best. She did it first and it's from her. I do think that that scene is a really beautiful reflection of what she penned from the beginning. There were a couple of little things that I thought had been improvised. Like when he says, 'Pretty please with a cherry on top,' and she talks about the maraschino cherries. When I saw a cut I was like, 'Oh, that's cute. That must have been a cute improvised thing.' So if I'm being told that Ryan wrote that, then great, how wonderful. There were a few little flourishes that I did not write, but I assumed that they had been improvised on set. But, again, like I said, the moments that I felt like needed to be honored are there. So I recognize the scene and I'm proud of the scene. And if those flourishes came from Ryan, I think that's wonderful.

How It Ends With Us Is Being Received So Far

It ends with us is getting mixed reviews.

The It Ends With Us scene in question is an early scene in the film that takes place on a rooftop. In this flirtatious scene, Lily and Ryle meet for the first time, serving as a key moment in their relationship. Speaking about the film, Lively recently noted that her " husband [Reynolds] actually wrote " the rooftop scene, which is a fact that she claimed " nobody " knew. From what Hall says, Reynolds did not completely craft the scene himself , but he did suggest enough of it for some dialogue to make the cut.

It Ends With Us released in theaters this past weekend, collecting its initial reviews. So far, It Ends With Us ' reviews are very mixed, with the film receiving a rotten 59% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes . At the time of writing, this score comes from 122 reviews, and differs extremely from that of the audience reviews, which position the film at a 94% approval rating thus far.

Cover of It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover’s romance novel It Ends With Us has become very popular among readers, but it has garnered a significant amount of controversy as well.

The fact that It Ends With Us might be divisive among critics should not be surprising based on its source material. Though the novel became popular on BookTok, It Ends With Us was extremely controversial upon its release, with several people feeling that the book romanticizes the domestic abuse plotline that is at the core of the story. Director Baldoni has spoken out about several changes the It Ends With Us movie made , but nonetheless, the film has gotten a split response so far.

Source: People

It Ends With Us

Based on Colleen Hoover's 2016 novel, It Ends With Us is a drama-romance film directed by Justin Baldoni. The film follows a recent college graduate named Lily, who meets a man named Ryle and falls in love with him. However, a traumatic incident compounded with her former high-school sweetheart re-entering her life complicates her plans.

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Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively Go Head-to-Head at the Box Office — Here's Who Won!

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The spouses faced off in theaters with their new movies ' Deadpool & Wolverine' and 'It Ends with Us,' respectively

Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/MARVEL; Nicole Rivelli

It was the battle of the box office for Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively !

The spouses' newest movies — Deadpool & Wolverine for Reynolds, 47, and It Ends with Us for Lively, 36 — faced off in theaters this weekend, as the latter film made its premiere and Reynolds' Marvel flick enjoyed continued success since its July 26 opening.

The winner? Deadpool & Wolverine , which raked in $54.2 million in global ticket sales, while It Ends with Us made $50 million, Variety reported.

The outlet added that the occasion marks the first time in over three decades that a married couple had their films top the box office. The last to do it was Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2 and Demi Moore in Ghost , which earned the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively, in 1990.

So far, Deadpool & Wolverine has topped the box office for three weekends in a row, garnering $494.3 million domestically and over $1 billion globally to date, per Variety .

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Related: Blake Lively Explains Why Bringing Ryan Reynolds as Her Red Carpet Date Is 'Like Homecoming Sophomore Year'

Despite their playful competitiveness surrounding their films, Reynolds and Lively, who tied the knot in 2012 and share four children , have supported one another wholeheartedly as they have celebrated both Deadpool & Wolverine and It Ends with Us .

For the New York City premiere of Reynolds' movie, Lively wore a custom, second-skin, off-the-shoulder Versace catsuit inspired by her own character in the Marvel film, Lady Deadpool.

After his wife rocked Deadpool red at the latter event, Reynolds stepped out with Lively in support of It Ends with Us in the Big Apple on Tuesday, Aug. 6, wearing an olive-green suit with a white floral boutonniere — a nod to his wife's protagonist Lily Bloom, who works as a florist.

Lively told PEOPLE at the premiere that "it's the best" to have the support of Reynolds , and previously joked the PEOPLE at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere that he was supporting here there as well, as opposed to the other way around.

John Nacion/Variety via Getty

Related: Blake Lively Has the Perfect Clapback to Ryan Reynolds Divorce Rumors: 'They Wish'

In an interview for a recent issue of PEOPLE, Lively described the best bouquet of flowers she ever received — and of course, they were from Reynolds.

"When my husband and I first got together, he would send me a bouquet of flowers every week ," she said, "but he would always send a card and it would just be a sentence of something that had happened that week. Something funny or emotional that one of us said."

"It was just a little quote of the week," added the Gossip Girl alum. "It was such a beautiful, romantic thing. Now we have 4,000 children!"

Deadpool & Wolverine and It Ends with Us are both in theaters now.

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Read the original article on People .

'We've Actually Liked Each Other the Whole Time': Wesley Snipes Downplays Ryan Reynolds Feud

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This story contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine .

Two decades after last playing the part, Wesley Snipes returned as Blade in the new MCU film Deadpool & Wolverine . The shocking return was very surprising for many fans, in part due to the reports of an on-set feud between Snipes and Ryan Reynolds on the set of Blade: Trinity .

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly to promote the film, Snipes explained how his return in Deadpool & Wolverine came to be. He also joked about hating Reynolds before stating that they've been "playing" for the past two decades when it comes to their reported feud.

Split: Wesley Snipes poses with a sword as Blade; Deadpool puts a finger to his mouth

This Deadpool & Wolverine Cameo Is Way More Meta Than Most Fans Realize

Deadpool & Wolverine includes one major cameo that capitalizes on behind-the-scenes difficulties on the set of an infamous 2004 Marvel movie.

"It was a call, " Snipes said of his return. "It started with a text from Ryan Reynolds, and I saw a text that says, you know, 'I want to talk to you.' I was like, 'I hate this guy.' That's a joke. We've been playing this for, like, two decades . We've actually liked each other the whole time!"

We've been playing this for, like, two decades. We've actually liked each other the whole time!

Snipes continued, "Anyway, he called and told me, he said, 'I have this idea.' And he told me what the idea was, and I was like, 'I don't know how the hell you are going to pull that off. It's very unlikely.' And I said, 'Well, if you can make it happen, sure. I'll come and do it.' And he was like, 'Really?' I was like, 'Yeah, why not? Let's see what happens.' I did not think it was possible . I didn't think he would be able to pull it off. I didn't think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it - also because they had Mahershala [Ali] cast for the next upcoming version of it."

What Does Robert Downey Jr.'s Casting as Dr. Doom Mean for the Future of the MCU?

Robert Downey Jr.'s surprise casting as Dr. Doom has shocked fans, and it spells major changes for the future of the MCU.

Snipes admitted that the initial pitch for his return as Blade "didn't make sense" when he first heard it, but he knew he needed to take that call from Reynolds, regardless. After he was informed that the powers that be at Marvel Studios were on board with Snipes coming back as Blade, the ball got rolling, resulting in the actor's big return to the part 20 years after Blade: Trinity was released.

Wesley Snipes Set Two World Records With Blade Return

In the process of returning, Snipes would also set two new records acknowledged by Guinness World Records. He surpassed Hugh Jackman's Wolverine run to serve as the longest time spent playing a Marvel character in film. By reprising his role in Deadpool & Wolverine , he also set a record for the longest gap between Marvel movie appearances as the same character. The record was held by Alfred Molina for the gap between Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man: No Way Home .

Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in movie theaters.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Deadpool & Wolverine

Wolverine joins the "merc with a mouth" in the third installment of the Deadpool film franchise.

ryan reynolds

IMAGES

Life movie review: Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds' space thriller
Life Review
Life (2017)
Life Super Bowl Trailer: Ryan Reynolds Fights a Scary Alien
‘Life’ Review: Ryan Reynolds Stars In Space Survival Story
Life

COMMENTS

Life movie review & film summary (2017)
As such, "Life" struck me as several cuts above "meh" but never made me jump out of my seat. The picture takes place almost entirely on a claustrophobic, labyrinthine space station; director Espinosa and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey have a lot of fun in the early scene "floating" the camera along with the space station crew. Ryan Reynold's cocky Roy is the cowboy of the bunch ...
Life (2017)
Life. R Released Mar 24, 2017 1h 43m Sci-Fi Horror Mystery & Thriller. TRAILER for Life: Trailer 2. List. 68% Tomatometer 261 Reviews. 54% Audience Score 25,000+ Ratings. Astronauts (Jake ...
Life (2017)
Life: Directed by Daniel Espinosa. With Hiroyuki Sanada, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal. A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars and now threatens all life on Earth.
Review: In 'Life,' Extraterrestrial Fun, Until Someone Gets Hurt
Movie Review: 'Life' ... In the best scene, Ryan Reynolds, as the crew's mechanic, charges into the lab to rescue Hugh and is trapped with an extremely irritated Calvin, then in his ...
Life (2017 film)
Life is a 2017 American science fiction horror film [5] [6] [7] directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and starring an ensemble cast consisting of Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, and Olga Dihovichnaya.In the film, a six-member crew of the International Space Station uncovers the first evidence of extraterrestrial ...
Life review: this space-horror movie is a creepy but familiar cover of
Life review: this space-horror movie is a creepy but familiar cover of Alien. ... Only flight engineer Rory (Ryan Reynolds) talks like he isn't being polite in a library.
Review: 'Life' is worth living for two freaky hours
Starring a couple of A-listers in Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, the new sci-fi film Life (**½ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) navigates very familiar terrain and unleashed creature ...
Life review: Proof the sci-fi horror is alive and well
Daniel Espinosa, 110 mins, starring: Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson. Daniel Espinosa's new feature provides incontrovertible proof that, well over three decades after that ...
Life (2017) Movie Review
The ISS team, which includes one Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) and Rory 'Roy' Adams (Ryan Reynolds), thereafter maintain a strict adherence to safety protocol, in order to ensure that nothing goes wrong, should the organism prove to be dangerous or deadly to humans.
'Life' Movie Review: Satisfying Space Horror
movie review Mar. 24, 2017. As Sci-Fi, ... Ryan Reynolds in Life. Photo: Alex Bailey/Columbia Pictures. It's a bit early still, but I'd like to make a prediction: In the tradition of New York ...
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Film Review: 'Life'. Reviewed at SXSW Film Festival (closer), March 18, 2017. MPAA Rating: RRunning time: 103 MIN. Production: A Sony Pictures release of a Columbia Pictures, Skydance ...
Movie Review: "Life" Is Full of Horrors
Richard Brody on the sci-fi horror film "Life," directed by Daniel Espinosa and starring Ariyon Bakare, Ryan Reynolds, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Life Movie Review
The movie is fairly downbeat, but it does have a c. Positive Role Models. Though the characters are largely victims, they re. Violence & Scariness. Many characters are killed. A character drowns in. Sex, Romance & Nudity Not present. A man watches a video feed of his child being born. Language.
Movie Review: Life
Movie Review: Life. Jared Shibuya |March 30, 2017. A team of international astronauts discover a new extraterrestrial life form in the space thriller "Life," starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds. Curiosity turns to horror when the exponentially growing life form threatens the survival of the crew and life on earth.
'Life' Review: Ryan Reynolds Stars In Space Survival Story
The movie opens with mission specialist Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds), who has a penchant for derring-do and always has a one-liner handy, undergoing a spacewalk captured in an ambitious long take.
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Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds imperiled by a b-team alien. ... Movie Review: Life Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds imperiled by a b-team alien. Kurt Loder | 3.24.2017 12:01 AM.
Life review: Ryan Reynolds's nail-biting alien thriller shows signs of
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Ariyon Bakare, Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dihovichnaya. 15 cert, 104 mins. As a title, Life could lend itself to any old film. But the way it's ...
'Life' Starring Ryan Reynolds in Space Is Pretty Good ...
March 21, 2017. Columbia Pictures/Collider. The latest killer-alien-interacts-with-hapless-humanity sci-fi horror movie, Daniel Espinosa's Life, is getting some pleasantly surprising reviews ...
Life Movie Ending Explained: What Happened To The Capsules?
The Life movie ending took audiences by surprise in 2017, offering a bleak and haunting conclusion to director Daniel Espinosa's sci-fi horror. While Life was not a box office or critical hit, it managed to impress many fans with its take on the contained killer alien story that draws a lot of inspiration from Ridley Scott's Alien.However, the aspect of the movie that seems to get the most ...
Life [2017] [R]
Six astronauts on a space station discover a nascent Martian lifeform that may endanger humans. Led by the science officer (Ryan Reynolds) and the medical officer (Jake Gyllenhaal), the dwindling station crew must find a way to keep the alien from invading Earth. Also with Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dihovichnaya and Ariyon Bakare. Directed by Daniel Espinosa. [1:43]
Life Movie Review
Review of the 2017 sci-fi film 'Life' starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ariyon Bakare.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds fight for their lives in 'Life' trailer
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X-Men Origins: Wolverine Began Hollywood's Spin-Off Era. Tim Grierson | 2024-07-23. The much-derided 2009 film, which first brought together Deadpool and Wolverine, helped kickstart a trend of studios expanding their intellectual property through spin-offs. Unfortunately.
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I find it hard to resist a well-crafted B-movie with an all-star cast, and Daniel Espinosa's Life certainly fits the mold.Sure, it's a riff on Alien (1979). But it wasn't the first and won ...
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Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, the famous actor duo who are married in real life, have more to celebrate than their successful relationship. ... It Ends With Us utilized a more modest movie ...
Ryan Reynolds' Best Movie Happened Because Of His Financeable Face
Though Reynolds should've been a big enough name to get the film a healthy theatrical release in the U.S., it never went wider than 46 theaters in the fall of 2015 and crapped out with a $423,000 ...
"I Am Very Proud Of My Work": Blake Lively Saying Ryan Reynolds Wrote
Blake Lively's claim that Ryan Reynolds wrote a scene in It Ends With Us is addressed by one of the film's writers.It Ends With Us a just-released romance film based on the popular (yet controversial) Colleen Hoover novel of the same name.The film ages up the young adult characters from the book, casting Lively in the lead role of Lily opposite Justin Baldoni's Ryle.
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively Go Head-to-Head at the Box Office
It was the battle of the box office for Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively!. The spouses' newest movies — Deadpool & Wolverine for Reynolds, 47, and It Ends with Us for Lively, 36 — faced off in ...
'We've Actually Liked Each Other the Whole Time': Wesley Snipes ...
Two decades after last playing the part, Wesley Snipes returned as Blade in the new MCU film Deadpool & Wolverine.The shocking return was very surprising for many fans, in part due to the reports of an on-set feud between Snipes and Ryan Reynolds on the set of Blade: Trinity.. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly to promote the film, Snipes explained how his return in Deadpool ...

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Review: In ‘Life,’ Extraterrestrial Fun, Until Someone Gets Hurt

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As Sci-Fi, Life Is Just So-So. But As Horror, It Works.

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Reviewed at SXSW Film Festival (closer), March 18, 2017. MPAA Rating: RRunning time: 103 MIN.

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