Life

As Alien rip-offs go, you could do far worse than Life, which is a strong, spooky example of the 'space creature devours spaceship crew' genre.

Having said that, Life tries valiantly to pull off the high-wire act so many other movies of its kind have attempted since Ridley Scott's original Alien was released nearly 40 years ago - bringing A-grade style and substance to B-grade material. It's a noble ambition, and Life should be applauded for taking a crack at it.

But at the same time, it feels like this movie should have been either a bit classier or a bit trashier (I personally vote for trashier, but you probably guessed that). Life's efforts to have it both ways results in something that doesn't lift its 'haunted house in outer space' story to a higher level and never totally revels in the creepy, jumpy fun that kind of story allows. In the end, however, it provides a handful of truly tense sequences, presented and performed with flair and conviction. And that's kind of what we want from a scary Saturday night at the movies, right?

Set in an international space station orbiting Earth that's staffed by a multi-national coalition of scientists, medicos and Ryan Reynolds, Life begins with the crew celebrating their successful retrieval of soil samples from the surface of Mars. They suspect they've found microscopic elements of life in the red dirt, and a few experiments later they're proved right - a tiny organism with cells that are "all muscle, all brain, all eye" is awakened from hibernation.

Then it starts growing.

As the little critter, nicknamed Calvin, rapidly evolves from a cute little blob into something resembling a terrifying space stingray, it zips around the space station finding new and inventive ways to make quick work of the crew with its long, strong tentacles.

And that's really all there is to Life - implacable extra-terrestrial hunts humans, humans resort to increasingly desperate measures to keep from getting killed and keep Calvin away from Earth.

There's the odd nod to something deep and semi-philosophical, such as crew member Rebecca Ferguson (from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) admitting she hates Calvin for its actions while acknowledging that the alien isn't acting out of malice, just instinct. But for the most part, it's a lot of running, hiding and cowering by the crew, well-played by a solid cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Hiroyuki Sanada (The Wolverine).

It's been done before, certainly, but Life does it with a lean, muscular and confident professionalism that's satisfying if not especially memorable. It'll make you shiver in your seat but it probably won't haunt your dreams.