Extinction

I hate it when a movie has some qualities that are overshadowed by such awfulness that it totally destroys the film., For me, seeing the characters, most of which seem to know which end of the camera is the important bit seemed to offer promise. But seeing the directors take on what makes a film is both disgusting, and ludicrously bad film making. For instance, every time the camera sets down, it is focused on the female leads breast, crotch, or ass, and remains there while the dialogue plays out.,, or it sits there for some time while in no way advancing the story. Its like it was calculated what shot would appeal to juvenile prurient interest, and tries to exploit it. Then the directors involvement as an actor, talk about heavy handed, there are many, many shots of the cameraman, focusing in for a nattering boring close up that is exactly perfectly focused, no matter how terrified the cameraman is supposed to be. Why are only those shots in perfect focus you might ask. I suspect its due to lack of knowledge of his craft, ego, and a lot of poor taste.

The characters that had the potential of more interest, Tim who seemed to overact every time he had his glasses on, which made a character more like a cartoon; but when he took the glasses off he was someone else. Then there was the alpha male, who specialized in predator, and primate behaviour studies, never really did anything very interesting at all.

Then there is the special effect dinosaurs, looked poorly crafted, shown in very bad light, blurred by motion, and only visible for a second, or two.

From lighting, to camera angles, to acting, to plot, to writing, to acting, to directing, there was such unevenness that the most I could have given the film is a three. However the 1/10 I gave it still stands, as it was such a waste of time from out of my life.

Really not much to say. Its just not any good. I see some glowing reviews here, but that must be the film crew and their relatives writing. If you are going to use this kind of hand-held amateur cam, you need to do better than this. I think 3 is a fair value, cause its not the worst I have seen, but I think I deserve my money back.... its really borderline fraud to charge people for watching this one. Some of the acting is not as bad as a 3, but the overall experience is no good. And its too long as well, I got really bored the last half hour.

If you still want to watch this, consider your self warned.

Good luck and God speed.

This is a strangely watchable movie. It is found footage and follows the genre quite faithfully. But is has an element of tongue in cheek about it that brings a slight attraction.

The hero, strangely enough, is the cameraman who is brought in as a last minute substitute on a very BBC-like documentary project. Strange because he is a complete nob; inappropriate, crass and somewhat stupid, but at the same time with the innocence of an everyman. And because of that he is strangely likable - probably because we all unfortunately have a friend like him somewhere in our circle.

So when faced with a completely impossible situation in the jungle, he acts like most of us probably would - trying to shout quietly, leaving the camera light on in dangerous times, having a dangerously daft curiosity and other very believable stuff.

It's not going to beat out Jurassic World for quality CGI and in-your-face-believable-graphics, and the jungle looks suspiciously like friendly English woodlands, but I could empathise, and that for me was enough for a couple of hours.

Having an obnoxious cameraman on found footage is the equivalent of seated next to a loud texting person in cinema. Extinction has a couple good moments and the setting is presentable, but almost half of the movie is spent on bickering. If it's for realism of human drama, it's doubtful that actual documentary people would argue as much and the banter is not exactly appealing. For the encounter with alleged monster, it has so little impact since the effect is far from compelling, so barely anything works in Extinction.

The film follows the journey of scientists and filmmakers to the depth of Amazon. They soon find out that the forest hides a very insidious secret. The use of found footage is mainly to create a sense of involvement for audience, yet the movie has a very confrontational cast. Nearly everyone would mumble in antagonizing manner almost in every scene, especially the cameraman James who is utterly annoying.

He would instigate people and react poorly when interacting with others. It's probably for humor purpose, but it gets tiring very fast. There are the rudimentary comments on the existence of creature which are plodding the already uninteresting endeavor. Some scenes involving actual fauna is a bit better to establish the authenticity, though these are few between all the squabbles.

As expected there would be unclear shots as the monster eventually reveals itself. It's not half bad since a couple of these instances are engaging. However, the effect for said monster is not convincing. The movie doesn't have the luxury of smooth mix of usual camcorder view and CG like Troll Hunter or Cloverfield. Not to mention the cast is unfriendly, it won't garner much sympathy.

In the end, Extinction doesn't offer an amusing journey, let alone the grandeur encounter the poster falsely advertises.

The Lost World idea of finding dinosaurs in a remote part of the planet is not new. Peru as a location had the potential, but it was never to be. The idea of driving along a dirt road and labeling it remote for the purpose of the film is ludicrous.

Had they spent a week in a canoe and then 2 weeks trekking to their destination using tribal Indians as guides I would have believed it. Wearing sleeveless tops in a malaria-infested rain forest at night, camping in tents and carrying a table and chair into the jungle just doesn't make sense. Their packs aren't big enough for a day trip let alone a multi-day hike. The nights are remarkably bug-free, I don't know any animal that would come around a camp with a lite fire in it. They find an albino python and don't know its albino? They can hear sounds of something big for 3 days every night but no tracks or scats are found and the scientists don't even seem interested. No discussion on what it could be? Was it a Tapir or Pecari, or Caiman? No picket at night to set up cameras and try and find out what it was. How did they navigate, as I didn't see a compass or GPS on anyone? How did the rain forest suddenly become wet sclerophyll?

In the end, I just watched to see how many things I could spot that were wrong. .

Oh, and the cameraman is an idiot. In all very disappointing.