'Life' a suspenseful, satisfying sci-fi journey

The film “Life” is a test-tube baby, born from a blend of old-school monster-movie DNA and state-of-the-art digital effects. At times silly — yet surprisingly satisfying — this tale of sci-fi suspense and horror, set in the weightless environment of the International Space Station, gives Emmanuel Lubezki's vertiginous “Gravity” cinematography a run for its money, with dizzyingly deft camera choreography and long, unbroken takes shot by Seamus McGarvey.

In this floating environment, an international crew of six astronauts has been tasked with retrieving soil samples collected from the planet Mars in the not-too-distant future. As the film's title implies, that Martian dirt contains a microscopic organism that, when fed oxygen and stimulated by an electric prod, begins to develop so quickly that the British microbiologist examining it, Hugh (Ariyon Bakare), names it Calvin.

Calvin, to no one's surprise in the audience, proves all-too-receptive to Hugh's nurturing pokes and tickles and soon goes looking for real food in a series of spectacularly gruesome scenes, one of which makes gorgeous use of the space station's weightlessness.

The CGI critter quickly has the dwindling supply of astronauts running scared, from one airlocked pod to the next, as they try to contain and/or kill it. But Calvin, whose every cell is “a muscle, a brain and an eye,” as Hugh puts it, prolongs their efforts, at one point even running around outside of the station like a misbehaving pet that will eat you if you let it back inside.

While this ever-more-nerve-racking game of cat-and-mouse is well calibrated by director Daniel Espinosa, the film's real interest derives from the human interactions. The excellent cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal as something of a shellshocked ex-military doctor, Rebecca Ferguson as a quarantine-obsessed CDC scientist, Ryan Reynolds as a wisecracking engineer/space cowboy, Hiroyuki Sanada as the jaded old-timer and Olga Dihovichnaya as the crew's no-nonsense Russian commander.

The screenplay (by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick of “Deadpool”) limits its actual japes to Reynolds' dialogue, opting instead for a more sober overall approach. (A wryly ironic reading from the book “Goodnight Moon” by Gyllenhaal's character is the only attempt at profundity. It's not that deep, but it's moving.)

“Life” has cool effects, real suspense and a sweet twist. It ain't rocket science, but it does what it does well — even, one might say, with a kind of genius.