Extinction (2015)

And suddenly, overnight, the world came to a halt. Two men, two survivors, one kid, and hatred that separates them. A place forgotten by everyone, including the creatures that inhabit the Earth... until now.

Review

Extinction is clearly based on a book. I called that less than 30 minutes into the runtime. It begins with an opening horror set piece - which makes little sense - and then cuts to around 50 minutes of character building, full of flashbacks and emoting (!), but sadly crashes firmly into the problem of being slow. With a capital S. Not slow-burn either. I like slow-burn. Slow. So, sold as a zombie film, the film has a five minute eek - the world is ending, followed by 50 minutes of drama, and then 40 minutes of actual zombie film.

But it doesn't translate well to the screen.

The direction of Miguel Ángel Vivas (Kidnapped) is fine, and leads Matthew Fox (Lost) and Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) were never going to win awards, but again, are fine. The writing is functionally abysmal. The opening scene makes little sense with no framing, the character building second act is dry, and rather boring, and even when the film kicks up a gear in the third, very long, act, character decisions and motivations are poor.

There are some plus sides. Quinn McColgan (Non-stop), portraying the third member of the leads - the infamous child actor - thespians everybody else off screen. By far the best acting in the film and definitely giving the most. The FX, while somewhat reminiscent of Will Smith vehicle, I am Legend, are pretty solid. But it's not enough to save the film.

All a bit vacuous, and not a particularly good attempt at bringing what I suspect was a good book to the screen. Has moments, but they need waiting for. In other words, there are better zombie films out there. Go watch Pontypool.