Extinction (2020)

Really good watch, could watch again, and can recommend. A big fan of Michael Peña ("Ant-Man") and Lizzy Caplan ("Mean Girls"), and while both are (more) traditionally comedic actors, this definitely shows off their range. While the production value is actually quite good, some of the choices at least give a nod to older b movies. The invaders' armor, in particular, looks unnecessarily ridiculous. Almost everything that makes this movie really good though is trapped behind spoiler walls as there is a mystery aspect to the movie: even in the premise.

I tend to give westerns and science fiction a bit more slack before giving up on them, because so many films in those genres are so bad, so I stuck with Extinction, barely. For one thing, I had trouble swallowing the idea that Peter, the guy who later risks his life selflessly, constantly and under extreme duress for his family, would also push his family away in such a cavalier fashion early on because of bad dreams. And in exploring his life and job and friends and — whatever — there wasn’t much of particular interest there either. The big draw is the fact that these nightmares are significant and will play an important role in events. But guess what? Did they play an important role? I figured we were seeing the predictive dreams so he could use them to explain what was happening or even assist in their survival. But it turns out his nightmare scenes were out of sequence and, let’s face it, not very helpful to them. So what was their purpose? I had smaller, more desultory questions also. For example, in this age of AI androids and futuristic spaceships, what is the deal of Peter having to reach inside a warehouse garage door to press a button to close it? Really, they got no farther than that in overhead door technology? But I made it through the film, and recommend it as light entertainment. It even has a couple of interesting plot angles unseen at the outset.