In a dour and sterile future, family man Peter (Michael Pena) is plagued by nightmares of violent alien invasions so vivid that it’s negatively affecting his relationships with his wife Alice (Lizzy Caplan) and daughters, Megan (Lilly Aspell) and Hanna (Amelia Crouch). When those nightmares carry over into his waking hours, Alice implores him to seek professional help. Sure enough, those nightmares quickly reveal themselves to be visions when an alien invasion does hail from the sky mid quiet evening among neighbors. Bent on destruction, the aliens lay siege to the city while Peter tries to evade their attacks and get his family to safety.
Director Ben Young’s follow up to feature debut Hounds of Love, a taut gut-wrenching thriller, is a stark departure from his strong freshman effort. There are glimpses of the brilliance Young displayed in Hounds of Love here, mostly when the action is confined to small spaces like the scene where Peter and Alice have barricaded themselves inside their apartment from an attack. Young knows how to create effective tension in intimate, small-scale settings.
With Young at the helm, a script written by Brad Kane and Spenser Cohen, and a talented cast of actors, Extinction seems like it should be a sure bet. Despite an intriguing core concept that doesn’t reveal itself until much later in the runtime, Extinction seems more content to slog along to sci-fi’s greatest hits while giving its talented cast hardly anything to do.
As the exasperated wife, Alice is so superficially rendered that even a talented actress like Caplan struggles with giving her any life. The children are relegated to screaming and crying the entire feature. It’s understandable given the situation, but it also makes them feel reduced to simple plot devices. Mike Colter (Netflix’s Luke Cage) has a small but pivotal role as a co-worker of Peter’s. Well, sort of. Save for a few lines of dialogue that serve to emphasize the overarching theme, Colter’s character also seems an afterthought whose purpose isn’t quite fleshed out. Only Peter feels somewhat fully realized as a character, with Pena leaning into the action. He tries to imbue Peter with emotion, but the sterile nature of this future setting makes it a Herculean task.
Once set for theatrical release in January of this year, Universal Pictures scrapped it from their schedule entirely and sold it to Netflix. It makes sense. The low budget VFX feels more appropriate for the small screen, and this high concept narrative feels woefully underbaked. Young keeps things moving along at a brisk enough pace but doesn’t seem as self-assured on handling the non-thriller elements of the film. The characters of Extinction seem to have no agency in their own story, the narrative just washes over them (and the viewer) with only familiar sci-fi clichés and action sequences to grab ahold of.
From Chekhov’s gun to alien encounters that borrow design components from the likes of Predator or atmosphere from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Extinction borrows heavily from just about every corner of cinematic sci-fi. It may demonstrate a reverence for the genre, but it also lends to a more predictable story. Even Young’s color palette choices, from the cold white tones pre-invasion to dark colors post-invasion, feel overly familiar.
Overall, there’s enough talent involved in Extinction to keep it from being a complete waste of time. The script is the weakest aspect, but it’s a brisk thriller that doesn’t stop moving. When the film does finally play its hand, it softens the film’s flaws a bit by recontextualizing everything that came before. For some that will be enough of a saving grace. It’s a simple, efficient sci-fi thriller with big Blockbuster aspirations but without much charisma or soul. As far as sci-fi films go, you could do much worse, but Young and the cast deserve better.
