Extinction (2018) | Netflix Original Film Review

In Netflix’s latest original film, Extinction, Peter keeps having a reoccurring dream about losing his family. It’s interfering with his life and relationships, getting so far out-of-hand that it starts to interfere during his waking hours. Whats going on here? Are these dreams prophetic are they memories? You know who’s not asking these questions, his wife Alice.  

Alice jokes about losing her mind and throwing him off that amazing balcony with the amazing view, and she gives him dead-eye stares when his dreams cause Peter to miss crucial moments with his family. It’s cool though because guess what, an attack happens and suddenly everyone is looking to Peter to get them out. It is your classic “look to the guy that everyone thought was crazy for answers” kind of story. I’ve been there more times than I can count, it’s a cool position to be in.

The story here isn’t necessarily fun, and while you are watching it you may think of similar movies like Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles, or War of the Worlds. Frankly, you might start thinking about those movies so much that when the twist happens you’ll be shocked. The sameness of Extinction is summed up by the great words of Admiral Akbar, “It’s a Trap!”. I mentioned the story as not being fun, but that shouldn’t be an indicator of it not being good. It does bring some real creative who-done-it kind of imagination to it. It is nearly interactive and lays down clues subtly but well placed. You work for clarity here, there was even a time at the beginning where I could have sworn we were in a Dark City story (only fans of that film will understand that reference).

It is going to be hard to talk to you about the performances here without giving away the twist in the story, but I am going to do my best. If you are wondering if Michael Peña was going to show up to work and offer up another Luis performance ala Ant-Man and the Wasp, then….you should be ashamed of yourself. Peña’s a wonderful actor who has held numerous other amazing roles. His role as Peter is one of them. As Peter, Peña is engaging and his execution really forces the viewer to start asking questions of the story.

Lizzy Caplan’s Alice will make you ponder “Wait, how did these two get together?” Don’t worry they tell you, but it reinforces the fact that there are some real puzzles being laid out before us. The rest of the cast’s mileage will vary. We have Mike Colter of Marvel’s Luke Cage taking a day or two off filming one project to show up here and be “Luke Cage plus fake beard, minus hoodie and powers”. There are a couple of kids frustrating enough that a viewer might well feel “Oh, just throw the kid and run in the opposite direction!”. In other words, the cast has a little bit of everything to make the story gel.

The production is where the less charitable people will call this a heavy-handed attempt to conceal whats happening in the story. Thankfully, I am not charitable at all. Look, everything looks good, and you can tell they’re doing a lot of this on a tight budget, but at some point, you will yell at the screen “THAT’S CHEATING!” All that aside, the execution of the special effects is solid. These invaders look like something we haven’t seen before, and their ships are follow suit. The city that we live in during this film looks like what Gotham would look like if Batman was good at his job (I stole that line from Kevin Smith). The whole world is surreally clean, which does a magnificent job of selling the story. A minor gripe though, the final shots we see look like cut-scenes from a video game.

Extinction is going to make you think both during and after viewing. It has an interesting message that we can’t talk about here because it would rob you of the experience of unraveling the mystery. I am not going to proclaim anything as ludicrous as “Netflix has knocked another one out of the park!” I will , however, say Netflix has rounded third and is looking to steal, and steal they did with Extinction, a wonderfully thought-provoking and puzzling movie that will hide amongst a crowd of invasion movies. One which will surprise you with its differences.

overall 7

Story 8

Acting 7

Production 6