LIFE Review

First impressions undoubtedly set a tone that will forever tinge the perception one has of another person or thing-such as a piece of entertainment. The first impression given by Life is that of an old fashioned horror movie. Sure, the comparisons to Alien are easy and to obvious extents, valid, but Life gives such an immediate indication of being inherently old fashioned in its approach to what would still be new frontiers that one can't help but to allow those tendencies to carry on throughout the entirety of the film even as it becomes slightly silly and a little long in the tooth. Life accomplishes such vibes by taking pride in showing the audience things we've become conditioned to by the movies that truly are spectacular were we to actually step back and appreciate them once in a while. Whether it be something as simple as the view of earth from space or the way in which director Daniel Espinosa's (Safe House) camera flies as effortlessly through the spacecraft in zero gravity as the characters do-these actions and spectacle are more appreciated due to the sense of sincerity the tone and score from Jon Ekstrand give off. Espinosa's film, which was written by the guys who wrote Deadpool and Zombieland (Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick), places itself squarely into the horror mold while utilizing the always compromising environment that is outer space to heighten the tensions and push the suspense up to eleven. In short, Life doesn't take so many notes from space movies as it does scary ones. Life is a thriller that means to make you claustrophobic despite the fact escaping said confined space would result in a slow, likely agonizing death. There are no good options except to stay and fight and so, as our six man crew is picked off one by one, we are exposed to the dangers of curiosity outweighing fear. We are exposed to how being blinded by what such discoveries promise can distract from the potential trouble at hand, but Life never becomes too heavy handed or ham fisted in these explorations of our psychologies or mentalities. Rather, the film finds a large entertainment factor in coming up with different types of situations to find that tension and suspense in-leaving the larger ideas to fill in the gaps in between; almost as if the residuals of the more striking moments are intentionally left to linger and for viewers to comprehend once the shock wears off. It's an idea that's easy to propose, but Life actually pulls it off rather well and is all the more fulfilling for it.

EVEREST Review

Like it's titular mountain, Everest the film is a vast beast of an adventure. More than anything, director Baltasar Kormákur (Contraband, 2 Guns) gives the film a strong foundation on which to stand and a sense of adventure going forward that is more than enough to make up for what can sometimes feel like a slim narrative. That is, of course, until the film reaches it's last half hour in which it feels like it has to rush to resolve every plot strand it has set up for it's large ensemble cast. That said, the film is more than a solid venture into one of the most dangerous places on earth that people dare to go which brings us to the real heart of the film. Without the crux of why each of these individuals wanted or were willing to risk their lives for a reward that, for some, could be viewed as senseless is what provides the anchor of the audiences investment. There are plenty of ways in which Kormákur could have chosen to approach this set-up that was primed perfectly for little more than a tense, action spectacle, but at it's heart this is a human story. And so, the fact Kormákur and writers William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy have essentially made both a rousing testament to the human spirit and a devastatingly brutal film that delivers the man versus nature psychology to an unflinching degree is admirable. In many ways, Everest doesn't purport to be anything more than a straightforward documentation of this true story that occurred in 1996 when a team of thrill-seekers attempted to scale Mt. Everest, but it can't help but to be about more given the grand themes that life naturally brings down upon us when we're stranded in desperate situations and have nothing else to turn to but our thoughts and memories. Kormákur largely tackles the positive aspects of this kind of adventure and way of thinking in the first half of the film before everything goes south and the darker side of these risks are exposed.