Movie Review: Extinction (2018)

The movie stars Michael Pena, Lizzy Caplan, Amelia Crouch, Erica Tremblay and Mike Colter.

Even though my wife and I have about a dozen TV shows recorded that we need to catch up on, I was in the mood for a movie last night and wound up scrolling through Netflix in search of one. When I came across this one, I found myself having a few doubts about it. But, since I couldn't find anything better, decided to watch it anyway. As it turns out, it was actually pretty good.

There were a couple things I really liked about this film. The first was the way it didn't waste a lot of time getting into the action and, instead, made a relatively quick introduction of the main characters before having the invasion happen. Since this is normally one of my biggest complaints about science fiction films (and quite a few horror films), I did appreciate that.

I also liked how this film managed to keep a fair amount of suspense throughout. Peter (Pena) rarely got a chance to catch his breath because, even when it looked like he and his family escaped the invaders, there was usually at least one a few steps behind him.

I also loved how the film also managed to be a bit of a mystery. This started with Peter's nightmare, which he described as a potential vision but could also be interpreted as a potential repressed memory. The movie actually does a halfway decent job of disguising which it was until the very end.

On top of it, there was also the mystery of the alien invasion itself. While Peter (despite his nightmares) and his family were surprised by it, there also seemed to be an awful lot of people who were expecting it. This made me wonder who was behind the cover up, why they were covering it up and what else they were hiding. Was his friend, David (Colter), for example, really his friend or was he actually a bad guy?

I think my only real complaint about this movie was his kids (Crouch and Tremblay) were kind of irritating with the way they were constantly crying throughout the invasion. I mean, I get being scared, but it was reaching the point where enough was enough. To be fair, the movie sort of hints at the reason behind that behavior later. But, even with that, I just thought it was too much.

It's a decent science fiction/alien invasion film that I did enjoy watching. I would recommend taking the time to watch it as a result.

My Grade: A