life movie review rotten

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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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.

Working in its favor is an international cast — even more inclusive than “The Martian’s” multi-culti support crew — with the added bonus that everyone, not just white-boy A-listers Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds , has an important role to play. The six-person ensemble make up the Mars Pilgrim 7 Mission, sardined aboard a claustrophobic space station whose Nigel Phelps-designed floorplan proves positively mind-boggling — this despite a stunning establishing tour, during which, via an “unbroken” (but vfx-assisted) nearly-seven-minute single take, the camera makes the rounds of what will soon be a $200 billion coffin. Clearly determined to rival Emmanuel Lubezki’s Oscar-winning work on “Gravity,” DP Seamus McGarvey hovers just over the shoulders of the crew during this opening scene, as they diligently collaborate to recover a Martian-specimen-collecting capsule carrying God knows what.

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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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"bring it back to the streets": fast & furious 12 may return franchise to its la roots, the godfather part ii ending explained: what the movie's final shot means, despite some promising elements, life amounts to a middling (and derivative) sci-fi horror/thriller that never fully realizes its potential..

Upon successfully recovering a probe returning from Mars, the International Space Station crew are enthralled to discover that they now have a sample from the red planet - one containing an organism that provides the first proof of life beyond Earth. 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.

The Martian organism (which is dubbed "Calvin" in honor of an elementary school back on Earth) begins to rapidly evolve in the ISS laboratory, but otherwise appears to be benign... until one day when, following an accident in the lab, "Calvin" suddenly turns hostile and becomes an immediate danger to everyone onboard. As the various people aboard the ISS struggle to contain this newfound threat and keep themselves alive in the process, there's one thing they agree on: they cannot allow this creature to make its way to Earth, even if that means sacrificing their own lives in order to do so.

The latest addition to the long list of movies descended from Ridley Scott's classic  Alien , Life is a surprisingly middle of the road offering, considering the caliber of talent involved on both sides of the camera . While the film takes steps to mix up the well-trod formula for a story about humans encountering not-so-friendly extraterrestrial life in outer space, it falls somewhat short of fulfilling those ambitions. Despite some promising elements, Life amounts to a middling (and derivative) sci-fi horror/thriller that never fully realizes its potential.

Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (of Zombieland and Deadpool fame), Life  is partially successful at taking the now-familiar concept of people being trapped in a spaceship/space station with a monstrous extraterrestrial (once pioneered by Alien ) and adding some clever variations to the narrative proceedings. Problem is, in order to achieve this, Life winds up incorporating plot contrivances - some of which inadvertently make its twists and turns all the easier to anticipate - and under-serving its various human characters, from a development standpoint. Similarly, the "monster" in Life  is creepy and innovative in certain respects, yet it doesn't always operate in accordance with a consistent set of rules (or one that evolves logically) in the way that, say, creatures such as the Xenmorph and Predator do. This reduces the tension in Life , making it all the more easy to predict when the "monster" is going to find some miraculous way to get the upper hand on the humans that it's stalking.

"Calvin" is a solid CGI creation that kills its victims in an effectively disturbing manner in Life , making it one of the film's more unique elements. Director Daniel Espinosa ( Safe House ) and the movie's cinematographer Seamus McGarvey ( Godzilla , Nocturnal Animals ) do a commendable job of visually mapping out the International Space Station's interior layout, allowing  Life to better maintain a claustrophobic atmosphere once it sets Calvin loose on the movie's hapless astronauts. At the same time, Life  recycles a number of techniques used in other recent sci-fi offerings set in space (the Gravity -style extended take near the beginning of Life , for example) without matching their achievements in terms of quality and/or bringing much that's new to the table.  Life  thus falls short of establishing a rich sense of atmosphere and striking visual style of its own - coming off more as a mashup of elements from other films as a result, rather than one with its own identity.

Similarly, the three main lead actors in Life - Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson - give solid performances in their own right, yet are saddled with characters that are never fully fleshed out in the film. Reynolds as Rory/"Roy" is one of the more memorable players in the film, despite being a standard variation on Reynolds' tried-and-true, foul-mouthed smart aleck persona. Gyllenhaal, by comparison, delivers a fine performance as the ISS's longtime resident David, yet the character never evolves beyond being two-dimensional (even with the references to why David prefers life in space to Earth). Ferguson is solid in her own right while playing the disciplined and by-the-book Miranda, yet her character likewise fails to leave much of a lasting impression.

Ariyon Bakare ( Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell ), Hiroyuki Sanada ( The Wolverine ) and the Belarusian actress Olga Dihovichnaya round out the main ensemble in Life , playing the additional members of the ISS crew that crosses paths with Calvin. In typical horror movie fashion, the supporting players in Life are basic archetypes that are provided with a slight amount of emotional depth (Bakare's Hugh Derry, for example, is a scientist who was wheelchair-bound when he was on Earth), in the hopes of getting the audience invested in their fates. As such, Life  struggles to sufficiently flesh out its side characters - making it all the more obvious that they exist in the movie primarily to be hunted by Calvin, no more or less.

Although it makes for passable genre entertainment on its own, Life  is also a routine sci-fi horror/thriller that amounts to less than the sum of its parts. While Life 's cast and crew have succeeded in delivering more inspired genre films in the past, Life fits pretty squarely into the Alien mold and lacks the personality to stand out as a memorable addition to that sub-genre. Nevertheless, those who are in the mood to watch some unsuspecting humans have a not-so-friendly close encounter of the third kind, may find that Life does a derivable job of delivering the goods and want to give it a look at some point (if not necessarily in theaters).

Life is now playing in U.S. theaters. It is 103 minutes long and is Rated R for language throughout, some sci-fi violence and terror.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

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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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Movie Review: Life (2017)

• Greg Eichelberger
• Movie Reviews
• No responses
• --> March 28, 2017

From the premise that all extra-terrestrial life is harmful comes Life , a combination of “Alien,” “The Thing,” “ Gravity ,” “The Mummy” and a few other trapped-in-space or alien-assimilation movies that we all know and love (or tolerate in some cases). Life is the story of the six-member crew of the International Space Station who, while orbiting Mars, discover a new form of life. And, of course, we all know what happens next. That’s all well and good, though, since we are not expecting anything other than fast action and quick deaths, and the audience will certainly not be disappointed in the film’s rather short running time (just a tad over 100 minutes; no doubt folks in earlier years had more patience with story and character development than we currently have).

In space for almost a year, the crew (with a heavy international vibe going on), consists of two American studs (Jake Gyllenhaal, “ Nocturnal Animals ” and Ryan Reynolds, “ Deadpool ”), a Brit researcher (Ariyon Bakare, “ Jupiter Ascending ”), the Frenchwoman commander (Rebecca Ferguson, “ The Girl on the Train ”), a Russian technician (Olga Dihovichnaya, “House of Others”) and a Japanese scientist and new father to boot (Hiroyuki Sanada, “ The Wolverine ”).

Things are pretty mundane, but when a life form is brought aboard from the surface of Mars, the world celebrates while a bunch of goofy kids name it “Calvin” (after their elementary school). Meanwhile, Hugh Derry (Bakare), begins treating the species like his own offspring, coddling it and even bringing it back from suspended animation. There is not much suspense to realize that this action causes the semi-protoplasm to grab the guy’s hand and render him mostly useless for the rest of the film (plus the trailer gave that away).

It’s here that the astronauts, who are no more than cookie-cutter placeholders, violate not only NASA protocol, but every rule of motion pictures within this genre by opening the lab door and ultimately allowing the growing organism (now looking like a translucent octopus) to attack each of the Space Station members one by one (like we’ve seen before, right?). For example, an astronaut has the thing enter their mouth and come out even larger and stronger; another incident has the crazed being bouncing around in space (where it is not supposed to live, but it maintains enough oxygen to survive until it can re-enter through a thruster port; and finally, the creature is able to make its way into space suits and other sealed equipment, rendering it practically invincible.

The last resort calls for survivors to utilize a pair of escape pods, sending the creature into deep space while the other returns to Earth; it’s during this segment that a more than obvious twist may or may not take place (I even found myself saying to the person next to me, “Uh, there’s two pods and . . .”).

Nonetheless, director Daniel Espinosa (“ Child 44 ,” and doing his best Ridley Scott impression) makes fairly decent use of the limited time and produces some thrilling moments, while the camera work of Seamus McGarvey (“ Godzilla ”) is both claustrophobic and vast with some truly amazing scenes inside the space station; and the special effects (mostly the ever-changing alien life form) overseen by David Watkins (“ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ”) is quite realistic and very frightening in some sequences.

It’s too bad all of this wonderful technology could not have supported a more original idea. Still, Life is not a bad ride, it’s just that most of us have lived it before.

Tagged: alien , astronaut , Earth , scientist , space , survival

I have been a movie fan for most of my life and a film critic since 1986 (my first published review was for "Platoon"). Since that time I have written for several news and entertainment publications in California, Utah and Idaho. Big fan of the Academy Awards - but wish it would go back to the five-minute dinner it was in May, 1929. A former member of the San Diego Film Critics Society and current co-host of "The Movie Guys," each Sunday afternoon on KOGO AM 600 in San Diego with Kevin Finnerty.

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Life review – Pattinson gives a dull performance in a dull film

There is no chemisty between Robert Pattinson, who plays Life photographer Dennis Stock, and Dane DeHaan as James Dean in this somnolent film about the magazine’s striking 1955 photo shoot

T he title is unfortunate. This passionless, somnolent movie from Anton Corbijn has a numbed solemnity and tranquillised moodiness that has more to do with death. A hushed respect for the early demise of James Dean is effectively backdated into the film’s fabric. It’s a period drama that sleepwalks its way through the story of how Life magazine got its iconic 1955 photo spread about Dean: those intimate images of the charismatic young actor on the rainy streets of New York and at home on the family farm. Dean died soon after the pictures were taken. Dane DeHaan is an eerie likeness for Dean and Robert Pattinson plays Dennis Stock, the ambitious young photographer who persuaded Dean to co-operate. Granted, Stock is supposed to be the non-charismatic one, but Pattinson gives what is simply a dull performance in a dull role: something in the casting and conception is wrong from the outset. Maybe he would have been better as Dean.

There is no chemistry between the two men, no interesting way of allowing Pattinson to make sense of a submissive role and the complexity of James Dean’s sexual identity is left unexamined, though there are some hints, kept locked in a heavy closet of the film’s own making. Corbijn has directed exciting and demanding movies in the past and, as someone who made a brilliant career in photography, he arguably understands more about it than any film director working. Perhaps the subject induced a fatal self-consciousness.

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'New Life' Review: A Tense Horror-Thriller With a Twist You Won't See Coming

John Rosman’s feature debut twists one of horror's most overused tropes to create a deeper emotional character journey.

The Big Picture

• New Life is a bold movie that offers a fresh take on overused tropes.
• The film explores themes of solidarity, adversity, and the power of hope in the face of chaos.
• New Life skillfully uses contemporary concerns, such as corporate greed and cyber surveillance, to enhance its background story and add depth to its thriller narrative.

This review was originally part of our coverage for the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.

New Life is a genre-bending movie that defies simple definitions. At first, writer-director John Rosman 's feature debut presents itself as an engaging cat and mouse game played by Sonya Walger and Hayley Erin that doesn't seem like it will add something new to spy thriller conventions. As it turns out, though, that's part of New Life 's charm, with big second-act revelations pushing Rosman's feature straight into horror territory and changing the story’s stakes. While getting into the major twist would completely spoil the film, it's worth noting how the filmmaker takes one of the most overused tropes in horror and approaches it from a new angle. That alone would make the movie a standout, but New Life has much more to offer .

The film opens with an image of a young woman covered in blood , sneaking through the streets of suburbia while constantly looking over her shoulder. The woman, Jessica (Erin), is being chased by people with guns, all dressed in suits. Her only chance to escape is to go North and do whatever she can to remain hidden until crossing the Canadian border and starting a new life for herself. While Jessica is on the run, Elsa (Walger) is ordered to take over the hunt for her. Once a prominent field agent, Elsa has been recently diagnosed with ALS, and her body is slowly refusing to respond to her will. She hides her condition from her colleagues and hopes that bringing Jessica in might help prove she can still do her job.

New Life (2023)

In a dramatic series, a recently widowed woman struggles to rebuild her life in a small coastal town where she finds new beginnings and complex relationships. As she connects with the local community, she discovers that healing comes in many forms and sometimes unexpected places.

In Jessica’s segment of the story, New Life tells a tale of solidarity, as she is lucky to cross paths with people who offer help without expecting any explanations about her past. She’s then free to build something new after evading whoever's chasing her. Elsa’s story echoes that of Jessica, as the agent is forced to upend her life due to the limitations of ALS. So, on one level, Rosman’s movie is about the chaotic elements of life where everyone must choose how to deal with adversity either by embracing hope or giving in to despair. That theme is echoed throughout both main characters' storylines, as Jessica and Elsa fight to reclaim the life that has been taken from them , either by other people or by unfair diseases.

'New Life' Boasts a Pair of Excellent Performances

As a character-driven story, New Life can only work thanks to Eron's and Walger's commitment to their respective roles . Even as Jessica and Elsa are on opposite sides, they both have to deal with secrets and mistrust, which gets reflected in how they keep their pain concealed and hold everybody at arm's length. Eron and Walger help give both women emotional layers by using body language to convey the complex feelings they cannot talk about openly as we observe their reactions to curveballs that are thrown their way as the plot unfolds. Walger, in particular, helps give the ALS storyline more weight by masterfully capturing the frustration and fear that comes with the diagnosis while maintaining the facade of gritty antagonist that her hunter position demands. This offers audiences an intriguing drama, which improves when New Life plays with genre conventions to subvert expectations.

At first, New Life doesn’t explain why Jessica is running away , nor does it reveal who Elsa’s contractors are. All we know is that two women who never crossed paths before have their lives uprooted by the chase. This narrative framing allows audiences to explore each character’s internal struggle. In addition, the movie also makes a statement about the dangers of technology.

As Jessica travels the country, she must do so while avoiding electronics. Meanwhile, Elsa’s army of technicians scour the web for clues of her prey’s whereabouts. With dynamic editing that adds a welcome and fast-paced energy to Rosman's compelling direction, New Life uses images of surveillance cameras, official government transcripts, and social media to showcase the alarming web of cyber surveillance we are all trapped in. As much as Jessica wants to vanish, there are just too many digital footprints people can follow to learn more about her . There’s a never-ending flow of information surrounding human lives, making it almost impossible to believe privacy still exists when street cameras can track people’s every move without alerting them.

'New Life' Takes a Turn That Brings Everything Together

That scary thought elevates the classic woman-on-the-run film, painting a grim picture of the power wealthy companies can have over people’s lives. Once New Life reveals why Jessica is on the run, that message immediately underscores how corporate greed often gets in the way of individual safety and privacy, regardless of the dangers it presents to us. So, even though these themes are not the movie's main focus, Rosman's writing skillfully uses contemporary concerns to polish up New Life 's background story .

It would be a disservice to the film to comment on its genre-bending twist. Still, it’s important to emphasize how the horror elements introduced in the second act add to the tense atmosphere of the thriller, tying Jessica’s and Elsa’s personal journeys closer than either could have anticipated. Rosman’s script is also clever enough to avoid tonal dissonances by smoothly adding these new components without losing track of the main story, at least until the end. The third act of New Life could have been cleaner, as some of the plot points that come with the horror portion of the movie get in the way of the thoughtful exploration of ALS that the film does through Elsa. Even so, despite using genre conventions both for its thriller and the mysterious horror story layers, New Life feels fresh and innovative , presenting a mix that works so well that it’s a wonder no one ever tried to do something similar before.

New Life is a bold, genre-bending feature debut with excellent performances and great writing.

• The film provides a new take on a familiar story, upending our expectations in the best way.
• Sonya Walger and Hayley Erin each give great performances, providing emotional layers through every aspect of their body language.
• The twist brings everything into emotionally resonant focus, showing how our two characters were more similar than they were different.
• The third act could have been cleaner as certain horror developments don't always connect with the more thoughtful elements of the film.

New Life is now available to stream on VOD in the U.S.

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Furiosa Reviews Make It Rotten Tomatoes’ Second-Lowest Mad Max Movie

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga reviews have begun to pour in after the Mad Max: Fury Road prequel’s celebrated premiere. Its Rotten Tomatoes score suggests another enjoyable entry by George Miller , having attained significant critical acclaim already.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga reviews earn it ‘Fresh’ Rotten Tomatoes score

Critics are raving about Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and have already aggregated a ‘Fresh’ score for it. With 41 reviews in at the moment of writing, it stands at 88%, having only a few ‘Rotten’ reviews (via Rotten Tomatoes ).

Daily Telegraph (UK) ’s Robbie Collin gives the movie 5/5. In his review, he calls it different than Fury Road and characterizes it as a “juggernaut” within the franchise.

Manohla Dargis from the New York Times praises George Miller as a “wildly inventive filmmaker.” She calls him a “prophet of doom” for “making movies about the end of life” in her review.

Another positive review comes from Rolling Stone ’s David Fear, who simply calls it a “win-win” in his review.

Furiosa’s Rotten Tomatoes score falls below Fury Road’s

While Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’s Rotten Tomatoes score might be considered sufficient, it’s still the second lowest in the franchise compared with the previous four Mad Max outings. Here’s how it stands against other Mad Max movies to date:

Mad Max (1979): 89% Fresh

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981): 93% Fresh

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985): 81% Fresh

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): 97% Fresh

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024): 88% Fresh* (subject to change)

With hundreds of reviews expected to come in, it has a chance to go up a notch and beat the first Mad Max movie’s critical score.

Arriving on May 24, 2024, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character and Chris Hemsworth as Dementus. It also features Alyla Browne, Quaden Bayles, Tom Burke, Daniel Webber, and Lachy Hulme.

The post Furiosa Reviews Make It Rotten Tomatoes’ Second-Lowest Mad Max Movie appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

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‘one life’ review: anthony hopkins is in peak form in a stirring, if by-the-numbers, period piece.

James Hawes' historical drama about the effort to save children from the Holocaust co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Flynn.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

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However, even though these efforts saved not only those children but also meant they would go on and have children of their own years later, Nicky Winton still felt guilty he couldn’t save more, according to the book about him written by his daughter Barbara on which the film is based. At its best, this film can stand as a reminder that every act of kindness, every life saved, is a mitzvah one way or another.

Although he’s no linguist and doesn’t have any contacts of his own in Prague, Nicky’s special skills include his doggedness and aptitude for paperwork. He is also the one who recognizes that their most effective course of action is to focus on the children and hope they can bring out parents at a later date. Between him and his mum Babi, a force of nature designed by Bonham Carter’s performance to flatter every Jewish mother watching the film, they manage to wrangle the bureaucracy on the British end, use publicity to drum up foster families for the kids in the U.K., and above all raise money.

The whole 1938-39 section is efficiently done and uses locations in Prague, fortunately not too scathed by the war in physical terms, to add veracity, as does the casting of Czech kids. That said, the scenes of families crying and little ones looking terrified and sad at the train station get a bit repetitive. What with all the tearful goodbyes amid the locomotive steam as trains pull away, you’d almost think you were watching a film from the period.

The scrapbook ends up in the hands of the production team at That’s Life! , a BBC-made TV show anchored by broadcasting star Esther Rantzen, which offered a bizarre factual mixture of muck-raking investigation, consumer advice and home movies of pets doing funny things, like a primeval version of YouTube. Nicky is invited to come sit in the audience to see the show where they’ve promised they will discuss his wartime experience and … as they say these days, you won’t believe what happens next. The whole extraordinary scene, still deeply moving, with the real Nicky Winton, can be seen on YouTube as a matter of fact, and arguably it’s the way the film recreation mimics the moment so closely that makes it so effective.

After this emotional high point, One Life struggles to know where to go. Clearly, the filmmakers want to send the viewer out on another high, although there’s not so much to smile about as the Second World War section of the story is tied up. At least this is a case where the end credits, explaining what happened to everyone, earn their uplift.  

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‘One Life’ Review: One Man’s Rescue of Children in Wartime

A British stockbroker quietly saved hundreds of lives by arranging for children in Prague to escape the Nazis by leaving for foster homes in England.

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By Ben Kenigsberg

When Nicholas Winton died in 2015 at 106, his obituary in The New York Times noted that, for decades, he had been startlingly reserved about what he achieved at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Between the Munich Agreement in 1938 and Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Winton organized a rapidly moving operation that saved 669 children, most of them Jewish, by transporting them from Prague to Britain, where they were placed with foster families.

The rescue didn’t receive wide public attention for 50 years, partly because, as the biographical feature “One Life” depicts, Winton (played by Johnny Flynn as a young man and Anthony Hopkins in scenes set later) was reluctant to acknowledge his heroism. In trying to capture this almost stoic modesty, the film, directed by James Hawes, falls into a dramaturgical trap.

“One Life” is really two movies. It looks back on the wartime actions from 1987, when Winton considers what to do about a scrapbook of photos and documents he has kept. Flashbacks to the 1930s open a window on his plan to locate Jewish children in Prague, secure visas for each of them and find them temporary families in Britain. Time, financing and bureaucracy loomed as stubborn obstacles.

The procedural complexities, and Winton’s efforts to gain the trust of the children’s parents, are compelling enough. They throw down a moral gauntlet to viewers, who must put themselves in his shoes. The motives of Winton, a British stockbroker and socialist with German-Jewish roots, are portrayed as pure altruism.

By contrast, the 1980s thread — which builds to Winton’s appearances on the BBC program “That’s Life!” in 1988 — might have played discretely as a portrait of mental compartmentalization. But intercut with the weightier wartime scenes, this strand comes across as slight and, unlike Winton, self-congratulatory.

One Life Rated PG. Running time 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters.

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A young girl who goes through a difficult experience begins to see everyone's imaginary friends who have been left behind as their real-life friends have grown up. A young girl who goes through a difficult experience begins to see everyone's imaginary friends who have been left behind as their real-life friends have grown up. A young girl who goes through a difficult experience begins to see everyone's imaginary friends who have been left behind as their real-life friends have grown up.

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Director Sam Taylor-Johnson ’s “Back to Black” invokes a single question, one fans of Amy Winehouse are sure to recognize: What kind of f*ckery is this? The Camden-bred superstar, played by Marisa Abela , was famously “just one of the girls.” Down to earth, charming, witty, and, when she opened her mouth, a dazzling performer with an unbelievably soulful voice. Infamously, those who remember Amy will also recall a brutal struggle with addiction and leeching media frenzies that followed her to her death at age 27 from alcohol poisoning in the summer of 2011. 

“Back to Black” chronicles the years between the success of 2003's breakthrough  Frank and the blowup of the film's titular album in 2006. But if you expect to learn about Amy the person or even Amy the musician, temper your expectations. Taylor-Johnson’s film, penned by Matt Greenhalgh , is concerned with Amy the addict , making “Back to Black” a dreadful, dastardly attempt at a biopic.

If there’s one assumption to be made about any musician’s biographical drama film, it’s that it will be music-centric. While “Back to Black” has plenty of performances highlighting some of Amy’s most famous songs, they are almost exclusively used for simple soundtrack and pity fodder rather than essential structure. They almost feel like flippant reminders to portray Amy as a performer rather than solely the emotional wreck they characterize her as. The film allots next to none of its runtime to the actual making of either album. We are given fractional context to her artistry, only minor bullet points, like a single guitar-in-the-bed songwriting sesh and a cheeky Mark Ronson namedrop.

"Back to Black" misunderstands Amy’s legacy. The film doesn’t permit unfamiliar audiences to be privy to her iconicity. It doesn’t showcase the ravenous support from her hometown and country, the way they rallied behind her, or the transition of her fame to the States. It neglects to acknowledge any of the reasons why Amy and her music were so beloved. Very little of her actual career is touched on in the film. Instead, it plays more like a montage of toxic romance, drug use, and impromptu tattoos. 

Many of the onstage moments serve to show issues with sobriety or the mournful longing she feels for her on-and-off boyfriend and eventual husband, Blake (Jack O’Connell). The singular clip we’re given of the making of Back to Black is a moment of her tearfully recording the titular track, declaring, “he’s killed me,” and hard cutting to a leap in time where Amy is in the deepest throes of substance abuse. Not even her addiction, the film’s misguided though central focus is given thoughtful narrative—it’s just something that happens off-screen. It’s treated with cut-to-the-chase rapidity because, as the film sees it, we know it happens anyway. 

Abela gives a valiant effort in her performance, loosely capturing Amy’s onstage mannerisms and idiosyncratic dancing. But gesture is not essence, and there’s always a distracting artifice to her depiction. Amy Winehouse's charisma and charm were almost as famous as her voice, and Abela’s hollow copy and exaggerated accent put her out of her depth in attempting to replicate them. 

If the film’s navel-gazing take on defining Amy by drug use wasn’t criminal enough, the script treats these struggles and her eventual death as matters of fate: an end bound to her from the beginning. Every reach for a beer or glass of wine is dramatized like a smug nod to what we know is coming. From the top of the film, Amy is portrayed as a philandering, snarky silver tongue, a criminal to the love lives of others and a fated victim to her own heart. Blake is treated like a casualty to the irrepressible storm of her out-of-control nature, and her father, a powerless, wishful supporter, even though simple biography dictates otherwise. Neither of these men is fully to blame, but omitting their enabling and exacerbation of Amy’s vulnerabilities is irresponsible to the dignity of history. Amy is portrayed as a naive and directionless mess, and all the while, the music is never the cornerstone of the story. It begs the question: Why was this film made? 

When we reflect on pop culture’s past with 2024 eyes, looking back on how the media and public treated Amy, we recall the exploitation with disgust. We compare it to Britney and vow to do better next time. The hopeful implication here would be that we could honor Winehouse’s story better in death than in her life, yet this expectation sets the viewer up for failure. While Taylor-Johnson directs scenes that seem to shake their head at the oppressive paps that tail Amy’s every move, her film fails to do anything different. There’s a gross level of romanticization and infantilization that hemorrhages any hint of life force from this story. The same sensationalist treatment she attempts to scoff at is integral to the story she’s chosen to tell. Taylor-Johnson’s predatory, voyeuristic eye never fails to capitalize on the strife of Amy’s addiction without providing empathy or care. It renders the music purely as a consequence of a proposed penchant for pain and poor choices, depicting its hero as pathetic. 

“Back to Black” makes a martyr of its subject, flattening Amy Winehouse's life and music to a series of binges and failure to overcome heartbreak. It viciously strips her of any agency or humanity, positing her to be nothing more than a tragedy with an iconic album. While there’s no way to separate Amy’s biography from her addiction, to conflate it with her entire existence, sidelining personhood and omitting the pillars of her legacy is an offensive approach to storytelling. 

For fans who love her, this film is a heart-wrenching watch for all the wrong reasons, and for any of the true loved ones she’s left behind, the impact feels as if it can only be devastating. “Back to Black” spotlights the same dialogue in its introduction as in its final act, Amy laments, “I want to be remembered as a singer. I want to be remembered for my voice." Yet, the film hardly remembers her for more than her darkest moments, a posthumous “too bad” that will leave many leaving the theater disturbed.

Peyton Robinson

Peyton Robinson is a freelance film writer based in Chicago, IL. 

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