Box office Life grossed $30.2 million in the United States and Canada and $70.3 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $100.5 million, against a production budget of $58 million. It ended up debuting to $12.6 million, finishing 4th at the box office, behind
Beauty and the Beast,
Power Rangers, and
Kong: Skull Island. In its second weekend, the film grossed $5.5 million, dropping to 8th at the box office.
Critical response On review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 261 reviews and an average rating of 6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "
Life is just thrilling, well-acted, and capably filmed enough to overcome an overall inability to add new wrinkles to the trapped-in-space genre." On
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100, based on reviews from 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while
PostTrak reported 48% of audience members gave the film a "definite recommend". Describing the theme of outer space, Ben Kenigsberg of
The New York Times said "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."
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone faulted not the scenes but the performances, saying there was "not a single actor in
Life who manages to fill in and humanize the blank space where a character should be." Michael O'Sullivan of
The Washington Post approved of these character flaws, saying the "conflicting dynamics of their individual temperaments lead occasionally to poor decision-making. While this may be bad for their health, it's great for the movie," adding that "
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."
Richard Brody of
The New Yorker complimented this balance of character and plot from the director, saying "Espinosa's sense of drama is efficient, familiar, and narrow; if there's a moral sentiment to his direction, it's precisely in the limits that he imposes on the movie's dose of pain and gore."
Kenneth Turan of the
Los Angeles Times opined that
Life, with a
mise-en-scène of the
International Space Station, was "a wonderful setting for a meal we've tasted before," adding that it is "undeniably satisfying to be in the hands of a persuasive director who knows how to slowly ratchet up the tension to a properly unnerving level."
Empire summarized their review as "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." The survivors' reading of
Margaret Wise Brown's children's bedtime story
Goodnight Moon drew criticism from
Peter Bradshaw, who stated "the crew’s memories of the kids’ bedtime book are supposed to lend a little gentleness and humanity to the film, and a bit of a narrative breather, but this third-act conceit only succeeds in replacing a creeping sense of tiredness with sentimentality." Wendy Ide of
The Guardian stated that the reading of the book caused the second act to drag, and was not an improvement.
Accolades ==See also==