Extinction

The story is quite fresh, I went in not knowing anything about the film so didn't see the twists and turns that it takes coming, which is quite a rarity with movies these days for me. The effects both cgi and practical are well done for the most part, though some of the cgi does suffer from looking like really good cgi rather than something that's actually real. Overall though it's a solid bit of science fiction fare to spend a couple of hours with.

The negatives for me mainly concerned the child characters, they were badly written and it was obvious they were just there as plot devices to make things happen. There are 4 instances in the film where children were used purely because if they didn't do whatever stupid thing they did at that time then no action would have taken place, it's lazy writing 101. Plus they cried, constantly. The youngest one cried and whinged for probably 80% of her screen time and she had a LOT of screen time, and sure that may be the way a real child would behave if put in her situation, but hey, I'm watching a science fiction movie about an alien invasion with spaceships and laser guns, reality has already left the building so it wouldn't have hurt for them to tone down her reactions a little bit to make her less irritating.

There's an exposition dump in the 3rd act that goes on forever and the ending feels a bit anti-climatic (and setting up for a sequel that I doubt will ever happen), but I still gave this movie a 6/10, I enjoyed my time with it I think it's a solid 6 and I might have even given it a 7 if it wasn't for the annoying kids.

What is it with Netflix lately? They're taking over, everything I watch seems to be a Netflix original movie. And in some cases such as this one that's not entirely a bad thing.

Extinction is an oddly enjoyable little scifi tale starring Michael Pena, Lizzy Caplan and Mike "Luke Cage" Colter. I went in knowing nothing and expecting very little and walked away pleasantly surprised.

I'm not a big sci-fi guy and the cover certainly makes this look like a generic alien invasion film. I can assure you that it isn't, in fact it's a well constructed highly original clever little movie.

Arguably it's a big "Twist" style movie so I can say very little. What I will say however is that it's well worth a watch regardless of your stance with the sci-fi genre. I found myself genuinely shocked by what I was watching and that doesn't happen very often.

Netflix gets another thumbs up for one of their originals, good going.

The Good:

Some excellent ideas

Looks great

The Bad:

Mike Colter is underused

I still struggle to like Michael Pena

Yet another Netflix movie that feels like it should be a tv show

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Lizzy Caplan is immortal and refuses to age

At minute 51 I gave up in the humans and their inane decisions and started to root for the aliens. Alice's makeup remains flawless, however.

Cut the whining annoying kids and have a slightly bigger budget and this would have been pretty good.

Good film really enjoyed most of it but the kids in it with their incessant whining, screaming and crying at inoportune moments giving away the families position drove me mental. Probabaly the most annoying children I have ever seen in a film