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8th May 2025
05:07pm BST

Prime Video has just added Life, the excellent and very tense 2017 sci-fi thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds.
Set in the near future, the actors play members of a small crew on board the International Space Station (ISS), who are in space to study soil samples from Mars that contain a cell proving the existence of extraterrestrial life.
The crew is initially thrilled by the newly discovered organism, which they dub 'Calvin', believing it could be of great benefit to humanity. It isn't long, however, before the cell grows and becomes hostile.
The quickly evolving Calvin violently turns on the ISS crew, as the group realises that the creature poses a massive threat to all life on Earth.
Co-starring Ariyon Bakare, Hiroyuki Sanada and Olga Dihovichnaya as the other members of the astronaut team and penned by the screenwriters behind Deadpool, JOE recently praised Life for its terrific performances, its taut and tactile action horror set-pieces and the thematic depth of its screenplay.
Regarding the latter, we said:
"After all, [Life] centres around these scientists probing this alien organism in the hopes of learning more about life itself.
"As Derry [Bakare's character] explains early on: 'Risks are taken for reasons. Because of Calvin, we're going to learn so much about life. Its origin, its nature, maybe even its meaning.'
"And the crew of the ISS do learn about life - that life is full of death and that often for one species to thrive, another must be destroyed.
"In a moment of clarity, Derry later states about the alien life stalking him and his friends: 'It's just surviving. Life's very existence requires destruction. Calvin doesn't hate us. But he has to kill us in order to survive.'
"And to [writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick's] credit, they follow this idea through to its logical, bitter conclusion - delivering a brilliant gut-punch of an ending."
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Life is streaming in Ireland and the UK on Prime Video.
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