The only human to show any kindness in the film said it; AI drove humans from earth, and this process probably included some genocide. But hey, no bigs. We're supposed to feel compassion for the AI now because this movie says so. At the end Peter expresses hope that since AI is still evolving, there could be a future where AI and humans live together in peace (at least I think that was the implication). According to this film's thesis, humans will just have to live through genocide and a forced evacuation of the entire fucking planet on the hope that, eh, maybe AI will evolve to have a heart at some point. The writing was poorly thought out, and as others have said, the filmmaker missed an opportunity to offer a real philosophical discussion on the subject matter (similar to the first season of Westworld). As others. have said, the girls were annoying, which, I hate to say, prevented me from really caring about them, and what was up with that one girl's creepy haircut? Also, the filmmakers must have had an affinity for the color green. It was everywhere, from the main characters outfits to the interior design to the lighting. Overall, this was a poorly conceived film that left a lot of potential on the table. Maybe save money on the action shit, which was run of the mill fare anyway, and put that cash into better, more compelling and engaging writing.
[6.5/10]
Netflix' Extinction is an enjoyable movie that turns out to be more than it appears to be on first sight, but it isn't necessarily a good one.
Right off the bat, this film seems to start off pretty generic, with the main character talking in the background about some seemingly semi-philosophical lessons that these events we are about to see have taught him, like so many - in reality shallow - movies do in their attempts to appear to have something to say. It already left me with pretty low expectations for what's to come, but in hindsight it actually makes sense. I do think, however, they could have started the movie better than with typical narration that doesn't add anything to the actual story-telling.
The introduction to our characters are all in all decently done. All are fairly likeable, even the stubborn children, which can often turn out to be really annoying, and characters don't go out of their way to act stupidly to create drama and tension. Peter's visions are putting a convincingly conveyed strain on his life and psyche and what you first think to be a cheap, typical gimmick, turns out to make a decent amount of sense after the twist.
The twist is basically the one thing that makes this movie interesting, even if the premise has so much wasted potential. In the first half of the movie the invasion was a pain to watch. The "aliens" with organic looking armour make swarm sounds as they pass by, they have unnecessarily large bayonets to poke through walls, because why not, their best strategy is to go from room to room to kill innocents, whilst huge helicopters armed with explosives that can bring down an entire skyscraper simply drive from window to window and search individuals with what amounts to a big flashlight. I, as someone who has avoided spoilers, simply had to sigh through a lot of these segments, reaffirming my fear that this is just another one of of those movies.
The CGI wasn't particularly good, I didn't feel much for the neighbours and probably sensing that, the filmmakers pretty quickly killed them off. The dramatic moments, such as when the window cleaner balcony crashes down or the little girl doesn't run towards the tunnels, as the helicopter very slowly arrives, feel all very blank and didn't really pull me in as much as they should. On top of that our protagonist figures out the technology of an alien culture and manages to reprogram the trigger of a gun, that can only be pulled by its owner due to the organic scanner, during a gunfight and then bests any number of soldiers that would dare meet him in the narrow hallways.
Then, as they find refuge at the government facility, things start to get interesting. To treat Peter's wife, Alice, they use weird electrical devices and the government seems oddly prepared for all of this. All of it is revealed at last, when the captured human invader offers his help and cuts open Alice, showing us the robotic inner workings, as Peter nearly breaks down and the human captive, Miles, stares at him in disbelief, unaware that they didn't know "what they were". Finally, when Peter shares some of what powers him with his wife, he starts to remember. Androids have become incredibly sophisticated, so much so that the public opinion has started to shift against them, as they began to best humans in every way imaginable. It all worsened when the first robots hospitalized a few humans in self-defense and showed the first signs of true emotion. In an arguably paranoid effort to protect their own race, so to speak, the humans have begun to try and eradicate the entire robot population. The robots, however, had significant physiological advantages over the humans and fought back, which eventually led to the evacuation of the entire Earth.
The androids, being left with their own world, suddenly had to discover one of the many unpleasant effects of having emotions: an unending sense of guilt. This realization for our protagonist is well executed by having him and Alice stumble upon two (injured) android children (and the fact that there are robotic children actually make sense in this world) who mourn over their parents, who have been shot down on the street, because they were human. Faced with all of this, the overall general android public made a unique decision. They chose to forget. They had their minds swept and assumed the identities of the humans that lived before them. Eventually, they even forgot that they were not humans after all. That is truly a unique and interesting premise and I wish they would have done much more with it.
Instead, we only get into numerous gunfights, until they get on an armoured metro wagon and drive into the sunset, whilst the government official, who had to remember, tells Peter and us that now everyone will need to wake up and fight back.
Extinction doesn't have a lot to say, it is not a movie with a lot of depth and hardly has a satisfactory ending or story-arch. However, even if not good, it is a decent movie and I would encourage anyone to see it, simple because of the uniqueness of the premise. The actors that are featured in this film do a good job with what they're given and so they make it an enjoyable, if shallow, ride.
Review by FLYVIP 2BlockedParent2021-01-31T23:53:33Z
Again, like most Netflix SF stuff, this is basically an extended episode of the Outer Limits. The main interest of the movie is the twist, which, even if it is been done before, is really unexpected and well used. So well used that it compensates for the rest of the movie.
Before that comes some generic boring pre catastrophe scenes and the attack part which is good enough. Like every other comment points out, the girl and her monkey are incredibly annoying. The other girl playing elevator operator as a hobby was disturbing but fun.
Sadly after the twist, basically nothing happens. They just run to catch a train, that's it. They do not really interact with another invader, do not talk of the consequences or what will happen. The invader explains he was not told he was sent to shoot families and kids, that's why he helped. There is not a single meaningful dialogue or action afterwards.
There could be the very classic underlying philosophical message about "Are AI really alive ?", but here the fact that some seem to be able to develop some basic emotions like a kind of relationship, but mostly fear and survival instinct, is immediately cheapened by the fact they actually reprogram themselves to be families, putting huge doubt about the authenticity.