EXTINCTION

US, 2018, 95 minutes, Colour.
Michael Peña, Lizzie Caplan, Amelia Crouch, Erica Tremblay, Emma Booth, Mike Colter, Israel Broussard.
Directed by Ben Young.

Extinction is yet another apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller. It sounds more ominous with his title. For the first part of the film, there are themes with which the audience is quite familiar. The hero, Michael Peña, is a technician who is plagued by recurring dreams, dreams of terror. He fears an alien invasion. There are also the scenes at home, his relationship with his wife, a town planner played by Lizzie Caplan. And he has two young children.

This creates both an ordinary atmosphere of home life and work as well is a sense of foreboding, especially as the dreams recur and become more menacing and violent.

Then, when the couple are hosting guests at home, the invasion!

And, with the invasion, the themes and treatment are familiar enough, conflict, menace from the invaders, their fearful look and armour, the dangers for the humans, taking refuge in a tunnel. The main drawback, however, consists in the irritating performances by the children, more than upset!

So far, so familiar.

But, just as the audience is settling in to make a judgement that Extinction is ordinary enough, there is quite a twist, quite an unexpected twist which makes the audience reassess what they have been watching. And that’s not such a bad thing to happen. So, extinction turns out to be more interesting than we were expecting.

1. Science fiction? Apocalyptic future? Variation on themes? Its implications?

2. The American city, ordinary, technology, workplaces, homes? The musical score, tension?

3. The transition to the attack on the city, the visuals, special effects, action sequences?

4. The focus on Peter, his nightmares, the attack, the violence? Images of responding to the attack? His waking, Alice and her response, the daughter, the hopes for socials, at work, collapse, more nightmares, the daughter and her disappointment?

5. The focus on Alice, her work as a consultant, the tunnels, praise? Her disappointment with Peter missing out with the girls? The social and the guests?

6. The suddenness of the attack, as in Peters nightmares, the spaceships, the violence, the creatures and their masks, the confrontations and shooting? The guests at the party, fears, the falling balcony? Their taking refuge, the confrontations with the attackers, getting into the tunnels? The fights, the gathering at the railway station, the subway and the train?

7. Peter, as in his dreams, the heroics? Concerned about Alice, her being wounded, carrying her? The two girls (and their overacting – irritating the audience wanting to sympathise?)

8. The creature, being unmasked, human, his name, Miles? His willingness to help Alice?

9. The twist in the plot and its effect? The fact that everyone on earth was manufactured? Memories erased? The driving of the humans from the earth and their regrouping 50 years later, the attack to reclaim Earth?

10. Peter, the realisation that Alice was mechanical? His willingness to give his blood, stabbing his chest, going back into flashbacks?

11. The revelation of the flashbacks, the humans, the television programme the humans talking, everyone a cyborg, living a human life? The fights, David and his role, the fight with the humans, sending them from earth? The cyborgs and their human way of living, created, the finding of the two girls, the girl as a cyborg and the wound in her eye, their being adopted? And living the seemingly human life – memories erased?

12. The final tension, Peter and Alice, the escape, the fight, David and the refugees on the train, the train stopping, the girls reunited with the parents, on the train, going out into the countryside, the future, crossing the bridge and its collapsing behind the train, going to the mountain to a future life?

13. The overall effect, the presuppositions in the first part of the film, the twist in the reversal of humans and cyborgs?