Life
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: March 24, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
24
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMar 23, 2017
If you lower your sights a few pegs and go in looking for a solid, tight B-movie that builds right until the final shot, there’s a lot to like. Read full review
76
The VergeTasha RobinsonMar 24, 2017
It’s a sleek and effective thriller, often scary and usually visually impressive. But too often, its reasons for doing absolutely anything amount to “because this is the way Alien did it.” Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 25, 2017
Just don’t expect this to be a light, escapist excursion into outer space. Even by sci-fi/horror standards, this is dark, gruesome, intense stuff. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedMar 23, 2017
Life is not a great film, but it has its thrills. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 23, 2017
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. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Mar 23, 2017
Life is a B movie on an A budget, an old-fashioned creature feature that delivers its cheap thrills expensively. Read full review
75
The PlaylistDrew TaylorMar 19, 2017
Movies today are too long and overstuffed; Life is lean, mean, and terrifying. It doesn’t have much to say beyond “hold up, maybe we shouldn’t poke around uncharted terrain so much,” but with actors this committed, set pieces this exciting, and direction this confident, it doesn’t really matter. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaMar 27, 2017
As a final-girl structured horror film, it has plenty of imaginative moments. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 24, 2017
Life is efficiently constructed to unsettle audiences. It demonstrates both the pleasures and the limitations of doing a skillful job with familiar genre material. Read full review
70
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMar 23, 2017
Life never reaches greatness, but it’s solidly good, from its earned scares to a spot-on ending. (Don’t let anyone ruin it for you.) The film’s tight spaces and layered audio will work best on the big screen; see it with someone whose wrist you can grab. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 23, 2017
This is an effective and unsettling piece of filmmaking, partly because Gyllenhaal has one of the most sympathetic faces in movies today--it's haunted and haunting. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 18, 2017
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. Read full review
67
MTV NewsAmy NicholsonMar 30, 2017
Like life itself, the film is unemotional and cruel. It hides its own nihilism behind grotesqueries that force the audience's stomachs to clench. We can't help feeling things. After all, we, too, are just collections of cells, and Espinosa plays our nervous system like a flamenco guitar in concert with head-pounding drums and nauseous trombones. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 23, 2017
Espinosa overcomes any shortcomings in originality and logic with one of the most satisfying finales in recent memory. First impressions are important but a clever last impression makes Life worthwhile. Read full review
67
The Film StageJordan RaupMar 23, 2017
Despite a layer of derivative blandness with the formation of its characters and cribbing from sci-fi greats, there’s something downright invigorating about a film without loftier ambitions than providing slasher-in-space pulp. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittMar 24, 2017
It’s far from perfect, but Life’s worth living for two freaky hours. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 23, 2017
A grim and fairly effective cross between "The Martian" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"? Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczMar 30, 2017
Director Daniel Espinosa whips up some nail-biting sequences. But the suspense is all by-the-numbers. Read full review
60
Total FilmJane CrowtherMar 30, 2017
No huge surprises but finely tuned and fun, like the love-child of Gravity and Alien, with added popcorn. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoMar 23, 2017
Life toes a line between underwhelming and just-good-enough, but performances help elevate an otherwise generic sci-fi clone with nothing new to add. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMar 23, 2017
Life jolts audiences with relentless ferocity, but it’s not interesting. Read full review
60
Screen DailyWendy IdeMar 23, 2017
While the bracingly bleak climax will come as a surprise to pretty much nobody, it still comes with an efficiently grisly pay off. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyMar 23, 2017
Taken on its entertainingly trashy terms, Espinosa’s film does most of the things you want from it quite well, at least until a gotcha ending which doesn’t getcha. Read full review
60
EmpireJonathan PileMar 23, 2017
Part Alien, part Gravity, just not as good as either of them. But Life whips along at a decent pace and deploys enough engaging action sequences to make it work. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 22, 2017
It’s a serviceable, watchable, determinedly unoriginal film. Read full review
58
ConsequenceBlake GobleMar 23, 2017
Life is like a box of mediocrity. You more-or-less know exactly what you’re gonna get. But for what it’s worth, Daniel Espinosa’s space shocker, while totally born from the same stars as many other films, still lands about half the time. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyMar 24, 2017
Life struck me as several cuts above “meh” but never made me jump out of my seat. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMar 23, 2017
Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and others float around one another for an intense but spark-free 103 minutes, their characters barely sketched. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 23, 2017
Director Daniel Espinosa’s stylish and at times fantastically gory Life features an A-list, international and diverse cast, a few grotesque surprises and one very cool and labyrinthine spaceship — but eventually crashes and burns due to multiple failures. Read full review
50
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergMar 23, 2017
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...and stronger visual stylists have gone before. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 23, 2017
Let's hope that Ridley Scott follows his own blueprint better in the upcoming "Alien: Covenant." The dull and derivative Life is no competition. It's DOA. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartMar 23, 2017
For all its CGI showiness, the fact that Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal signed on for this splatterfest is the film’s most impressive feat. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 23, 2017
Part of the problem is that, in trying to convey the chaos of abject fear, Espinosa makes it hard to figure out the architecture of the ship, so we don’t know where anyone’s running. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 23, 2017
Like Life itself, this alien is nasty, brutish, and short. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 23, 2017
The performances are sharp, with the actors getting across fear, intense cold and a range of emotions, from desperate panic to noble sacrifice. It’s just that Life is more inevitable than surprising. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnMar 19, 2017
Life spends its first act building up some big ideas, but eventually unravels into another monster movie in space. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeMar 18, 2017
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. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 24, 2017
Given the fact that Life was co-written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who co-wrote the wacked-out “Zombieland” and “Deadpool,” the film’s glum earnestness is doubly disappointing. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisMar 29, 2017
By the end, however, the movie’s predictable wind-down and ho-hum twist at the end make this Life hardly worth living. In space, no one can hear you yawn. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 23, 2017
For all its flashy trappings, weighty ruminations and zero-gravity floatings aboard the International Space Station, Life turns out to be another variant of “Alien,” though without the grungy horror and grim fun. In space no one can hear you snore. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonMar 22, 2017
A handful of tense moments and some neat Gravity style effects just about keep Life ticking along. But the direction by Daniel Espinosa (he of the dire Child 44) is seriously shoddy – there's a moment towards the end when everything seems suddenly to happen at once, and not in a good way – and the total lack of originality is disappointing. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 23, 2017
In space, everyone can hear you yawn. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEric HendersonMar 30, 2017
Life, an incredibly square and familiar studio product, baits and switches on two disappointing propositions, moving swiftly from something expectedly cliché to something dismayingly derivative. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubMar 23, 2017
We get a lot of hapless victims in an expensive endeavor that is surprisingly lifeless. Read full review
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