journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

movie review - Extinction

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2018.08.07

This is a story of Armageddon; peaceful cities of citizens going through their lives in a near-future setting that seems to be getting on pretty well. One person is plagued by visions of a coming invasion but this is suppressed and all is well (if told in an overly-restrained way).

Then the invasion starts as foretold.

And then the invaders are found to be human, though they're clearly arriving in landing craft dropped from space ships. And the invaders speak of those fleeing the invasion as if they aren't human. Something's up.

The story's good but not great: the dialog is strained in a number of places and some of the actions by the characters are dubious. The direction seems to be the problem here; Michael Peña seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting here (which he can do). At times you can almost feel the actors waiting for instruction and the kids were not handled as well as they could be.

Things sharpen up quite a bit in the last half and the entire lead-up to an including the ending is quite good. The "something" in "something's up" is both clever and well done, but more so there's an interesting thought in there about a potential future for our race. (And it's not that we'll make great pets.)

Recommended. For a light evening's entertainment.

rand()m quote

When I was a teenager I was sure I'd be dead before I was thirty. Let's just say that I am well into some serious gravy time now but sometimes I wonder if I am actually dead and this is hell.

—anonymous blog comment