Extinction – A film review

Extinction is a Netflix film released in July 2018. It features Micheal Pena as a busy father who has visions of an alien invasion that come true.

The start of the film is somewhat slow and meandering as the familial relationships are set up. It looks contemporary however their are small clues that this is set in the near future.

I cannot really delve deeply into the film without spoiling it so for this section I will just say that I enjoyed the film and the twist in it raised it above a humdrum alien invasion story however it did have problems and true sci-fi fans will identify these holes.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Throughout the slow first section of the film something never felt right about the plot line but I thought nothing of it until the big reveal of who the aliens were. It was a neat twist on the story and I very soon began to question my loyalties.

Up until this point I had been rooting for the family but on this reveal I began to wonder who was in the right and who was in the wrong. This kept me engaged as the plot continued. There was actually very little plot, it was an escape movie and I felt the ending let it all down. The final escape whilst exciting left too many questions unanswered and hadn’t given us enough background to enable us to fully moralise what comes next. It kind of felt like a cliffhanger in a series of films, tune in next time to find out what happens – can the two sides learn to live together.

The acting whilst not stellar was solid and the characters engaging. The special effects were great, I liked the spaceships and the weapon effects were excellent as were their sounds. The story, whilst short and highly focused, lacked a depth. Certain key factors were glossed over and many of the reveals were shown in flashback memories, which in some ways seemed a little lazy.

The film sets up some interesting moral questions but doesn’t try and give you any answers, perhaps that was never the intention of the film but for me good sci-fi tells a story on many levels and not always just on the narrative side.

All in all, it was a fun film that passed the time and was obviously made on a small Netflix budget. What they produced was good and continues to show the potential Netflix has in producing films in this genre.

Into the Nebula Score – 7/10