6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars and now threatens all life on Earth.
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon BakareSci-Fi | 100% |
Thriller | 60% |
Horror | 34% |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
German: Dolby Digital 5.1
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Russian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
Turkish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
UV digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Art imitates life, and Life imitates movies like Alien. It's not a poor man's recreation of Ridley Scott's genre masterpiece, but it is a derivative facsimile thereof. The movie offers little of creative substance, serving instead as a perfectly serviceable and largely entertaining but fairly hollow nuts-and-bolts tale of a handful of science-types trapped on board a space station with a deadly, evolving alien creature. That's really about it. The film, from Director Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), satisfies all technical requirements and delivers a decent enough time-killing watch, but audiences should be prepared for a film that yields little in the way of serious drama, characterization, gore, or genre chills. It has no staying power beyond its time on the screen. Indeed, "serviceable" describes it to a "T."
Note: The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.
Life's Blu-ray generally looks just fine with a few caveats, but the UHD offers
up
a fairly sizable improvement
and, at times, almost puts its 1080p counterpart to shame. The 2160p/HDR-enhanced image offers a serious uptick in clarity and color to be sure
and,
at times, detail, even as the movie was reportedly finished at 2K but photographed at higher resolutions.
Some
of the best moments for comparison come right at the end. Without divulging spoiler material, the movie transitions from a fairly bleak gray and
blue-heavy coloring to a much more organic, diverse, and bright location where colors dazzle and, even as the image maintains something of a
digital
glossy sheen, it offers a substantial boost in clarity and fine detail that's unmissable. For the bulk of the movie, though, there's not a lot of difference
in
some
extreme close-ups; Hugh Derry studies the creature
under a microscope about 12-13 minutes into the movie, and both discs reveal plenty of intimate facial texturing. In other places, and as noted in
the
Blu-ray review, there are some rather flat, softer, pastier, less well-defined moments. Not on the UHD. These textures are much firmer, much more
revealing, whether faces, clothes, or instrument panels and other surfaces on board the space station. The HDR color scheme gives the movie a
much
brighter, more evenly lit feel. It doesn't fundamentally change the mood, but it does open up some scenes and plays nicely in conjunction with the
improved textures. Accurate or not, the movie plays, looks, and feels better with the HDR compliment. On the down side, noise can be a touch
spiker,
but at the same time finer. Blacks don't always hold deep. Still, this is a fairly substantial improvement over the Blu-ray; it's definitely the way to
watch
the movie at home.
The short review: take the review for the Blu-ray's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack, amplify the superlatives a bit with some overhead goodness, and consider that the review for this disc's Atmos soundtrack. The longer review: the 7.1 track is quite good, and the Atmos doesn't have much room to expand on greatness. Some of the more chaotic moments -- alarms blaring at the 24-minute mark or a big, whooshing action scene with rushes of air and debris and deep and penetrating notes all blending together for the audience's attention and to the movie's extreme-end benefit at the 74-minute mark -- offer good examples of how both tracks deliver potency and vitality. The Atmos is a little tighter, a touch better defined in terms of sending rushing elements through the stage and, indeed, above the listener at the 74-minute-mark frenzy. One might be hard-pressed to notice any substantial differences when alternating between discs on an A-B comparison, but there's no mistaking the slight, but critical, added depth and dimensionality the overhead layer brings to the proceedings. The Atmos track might sound a little fuller in quieter scenes where station's systems or small background elements sound a hair richer, but otherwise the tracks are awfully close to one another. Needless to say, dialogue is just fine here. Both tracks serve the movie well; this one just a smidgen better.
Life features a hodgepodge of featurettes and a few deleted scenes on the included Blu-ray disc. The UHD disc contains only the standard
Sony extras: a few cast and crew still images and a collection of categorized Moments (2160p/HDR/Atmos): Calvin (12:14),
David Jordan (12:43), Miranda North (14:19), and The Crew (13:56). A UV digital copy code is included with purchase.
Life may not captivate, but it offers just enough entertainment value to keep the viewer interested. It's as predictable as the day is long and the performances (and the script) are a drag, but the filmmakers have injected the movie with just enough of a technical achievement and sheen to keep it moving, assuming one can get past the overwrought opening act. A classic watch-and-forget, the movie will likely only be remembered when it's seen in a collection of films that tried, but failed, to capture the same magic as Alien. Sony's UHD release of Life actually breathes a little more life into the movie. The uptick in video quality ranges from solid to substantial, and the movie plays better with a firmer, more stable image. The Blu-ray is by no means bad, but it sure doesn't look great in comparison. The upgrade in audio is more of a wash, a lateral move with only a slight upward movement in favor of the Atmos. Supplements are unchanged beyond the moments and still photos. Recommended.
2017
40th Anniversary Edition
1979
Ultimate Collector's Edition
1986
Special Edition
2000
1997
2018
2018
2013
1992
2011
2016
2023
2004
2009
Collector's Edition
2013
3-Disc Set
2010
1990
1987
2010
2013