I think we’ve all been there. Scrolling through the Netflix selection for ten minutes at a time looking for something to watch. I realized that that those ten minutes add up to a precious amount of time so now I either use Kodi to find something I already had on my mind or I play it safe with the Netflix originals so I can pick something quick. This led me to Extinction, which was a movie that started off with some predictable notes but was elevated by its twist. I won’t say it was amazing though. Everything surrounding the twist could have been handled a lot better.
Michael Pena carries the film, with his wife being somewhat forgettable. The worst part of the film were Pena’s kids. The kids weren’t too bad before the alien invasion begins, but once the action starts 90% of their dialogue is crying, whining or screaming. Now, people might be tempted to say that’s what kids do. I am also tempted to say that kids also have bowel movements: I don’t think a film always has to focus on the things kids do. The children almost came across as parodies of child characters in disaster films. The older daughter, whose first scene makes her come across as precocious and interesting, gets reduced to a blubbering mess who contributes absolutely nothing past a certain point.
As someone who doesn’t like kids in general, I can still think of other disaster or action films where the kids aren’t as annoying. Jurassic Park comes to the top of my mind. Both kids are a bit older than their counterparts here, but bear with me. The two characters have their moments of screaming, which is reasonable. However, these moments are not the majority of their post-disaster screentime. They bring humour, heart and even some insight into the dinosaurs that we see on screen. They remain characters, instead of really annoying appendages. They don’t make one stupid decision after another, like leaving the relative safety of a closet to go find a stuffed toy.
Let’s not forget that scene near the end where the family is reunited. The train, which is trying to escape the alien army behind, stops for Pena and his wife. The two kids run out of the train (again, the train being chased by an army) and have a slow-motion hug and reunion. Heartwarming? No, not in this case. It came across as blindingly stupid and sappy.
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