BEFORE: Huh, haven't watched an alien invasion film in a while - not since "The Tomorrow War" last year, I think. But I've got two more scheduled for this year, it looks like, so maybe this will be a recurring theme this year after all.
Michael Peña carries over again from "Secret Headquarters".
THE PLOT: A father has a recurring dream of losing his family. His nightmare turns into reality when the planet is invaded by a force bent on destruction. Fighting for their lives, he comes to realize an unknown strength to keep them safe from harm.
AFTER: OK, third film in a row where the central character is a father who's got a failed or failing relationship with his wife and child (or children). But here the prevailing cause is not his job or his side-gig as a superhero, it's because he's having recurring nightmares of an alien invasion. Maybe he's just got a stressful job, and his brain is working some stuff out at night, and I know what that feels like - or maybe he's somehow having precognitions about what's about to happen. He's got Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder, in other words.
When he finally agrees to see a professional about this, after a few blackouts that make him miss out on spending quality time with his daughters, he realizes that another patient at the clinic is having similar dreams, and that guy keeps coming to the clinic to have them erased. So what's going on here? Good to know that in the future there will be some kind of mind-wiping technology, only is that really a good thing?
Of course, the next night, when Peter and his wife Alice FINALLY get together with work friends for the first time in forever, that's when the aliens invade for real. And then Peter, who decided not to get his mind wiped after all, really has a chance to shine, because he remembers from his dreams how to fight the aliens, and who survives the initial attack, which gives him a clue about where to bring his family so they'll be safe. But then, are the visions accurate or just a hint about possible outcomes?
(The alien soldiers, by the way, have biometric locks on their weapons, so only individual users can fire them. Which seems like a shame, like this tech has been discussed in the U.S., but never got put into play, because of the NRA. Think about that for a moment, the ALIENS have better gun control policies than we do. We should be ashamed...I bet they have extensive background checks and reasonable waiting periods, too.)
On their way through the underground tunnels to the factory where Peter works, Alice is injured from a bomb blast, and they're found by the same alien who invaded their apartment, who was able to trace them via the alien rifle they're carrying. There's a twist here that changes the entire game, but I'm not going to get into it because it's a major spoiler. I'll just say it's one that I haven't seen before, and it elevates this beyond being any kind of simple invasion movie, which it sure seemed like from the jump. But it's not.
I'm surprised I haven't heard more about this movie over the last few years, I mean it has been on Netflix since 2018, so people may have watched it and then forgot about it, but this twist means that it could become more and more relevant as time goes by. (Man, you know a film is very difficult to link to if it's been on my list for THIS long...five years?)
But people way back in the pre-pandemic era apparently also found this plot to be quite confusing and muddled - so the world wasn't ready for this film back then, but maybe one day its time will come. And how can you call something "formulaic" if it ends up in a completely different place from any other film that came before? Sure, it started with a tried-and-true formula of events that you've seen in everything from "Independence Day" to "Captive State" - but then it goes off in a completely new direction. Kudos for that, I guess.
NITPICK POINT: If the aliens have mastered the ability to get to Earth from another planet, why the heck would Peter and Alice think they could hold them off just by barricading their apartment door with the couch?
Maybe it's the fact that Michael Peña and Owen Wilson co-starred in yesterday's movie, but to me "Extinction" felt like almost the exact same movie as "No Escape", just with hostile aliens replacing Asians. Just me?
Also starring Lizzy Caplan (last seen in "My Best Friend's Girl"), Mike Colter (last seen in "Girls Trip"), Amelia Crouch (last seen in "Kate"), Erica Tremblay, Israel Broussard (last seen in "The Bling Ring"), Lex Shrapnel (last seen in "Flyboys"), Emma Booth (last seen in "Gods of Egypt"), Lilly Aspell (last seen in "Wonder Woman 1984"), Tom Riley, Michael Absalom, Mina Obradovic, Nikola Kent (last seen in "Papillon" (2017)), Dan Cade (last seen in "The Family").
RATING: 6 out of 10 oddly-shaped apartment buildings
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