Extinction (2018)

I am starting to feel Netflix pays people in social media for promotion of their movies. I have seen several movies get praise they don't quite deserve. Movies aren't bad but not worth the praise they get. Extinction is one of those movies. It is also one of Netflix movies which would have worked better as episode of anthology series.

I don't get into more spoilers than the trailer but if you haven't seen the trailer and want to watch this movie unspoiled I suggest you do it before reading further.

Extinction is pretty much Skyline (2010) with interesting twist. It is movie about how normal people would survive alien attack. Most of them wouldn't. This takes first hour of one and half hour movie. First twenty minutes are about man seeing visions of alien attack and introducing his family. Next forty minutes are said family trying to survive alien attack. Then there is a twist which makes this good science fiction movie for twenty minutes. Last fifteen minutes are credits and getting back to surviving alien attack.

I am not sure if that twenty minutes is worth watching one and half hour movie. It is weird everything good happens inside twenty minutes. Even weirder that it is almost the same time we see one character's face. Movie is good only when this one character shows his face. It is not because actor is so good. It is because everything interesting is revealed after the character showed his face and before he leaves the movie. Fact that they could tell everything interesting in twenty minutes tells this should have been under an hour episode of anthology series.

If you want to optimize your time usage and see that twenty minutes of good science fiction you can watch the trailer and start the movie from forty seven minutes. It is up to you if you want to stop around hour and twenty minutes mark. Talking about trailer. I think it revealed bit too much. It revealed alien attack was real. It ruined first twenty minutes little when you knew aliens would attack. Trailers have to show the movie but in this case visions would have been enough.

Extinction had good idea but they made wrong movie. If not the wrong movie time was allocated wrongly. Too much time was given to alien attack because there was actually more than just regular alien attack. Movie has more bad than good but bad is not really that bad and when it is good it is good.