The View From The Mountain

Despite a title that reminds me of Oscar-bait movies (you know, those earnest, “serious” dramas that nobody remembers or gives a damn about a year after they win their awards), I wanted to see Life because it was a science fiction/horror hybrid, much like how the Alien films are, and they’re among my favorite in that sub genre. Life deals with the crew of the International Space Station, which is a real thing, floating up there yonder right above your head now. Life is going by routinely for the six astronauts stationed on the ISS, until they are called to capture a wayward probe. The automated probe, sent to collect dirt specimens from Mars, has suffered some damage on its way back to Earth and has gone haywire, and it’s up to Jake Gyllenhaal to “catch” it using the station’s mechanical arm. He does so, and when the probe’s contents are examined and experimented on by Ariyon Bakare, playing one of the station’s scientists, he manages to revive the long-dormant cells, proving tha...