The world as we know it has ended, completely
frozen over. I think it was because of the weather
machines. While I do like it when movies don't spell
things out for me, I'm thinking in this movie 'The Colony' a
touch of exposition would've been nice. Kevin Zegers
character of Sam was narrating anyway so I don't think that
would've been too much trouble. But, as it tends to be
in post-apocalyptic scenarios, there are survivors and they
are making the best of a really bad situation.
Especially Sam who even in this post-apocalyptic world still
managed to find a really hot girlfriend in Kai (Charlotte
Sullivan). How bad can the apocalypse really be?
Right now we're in Colony Seven… or Five. I can't
remember. Or Three. Regardless, In a deep
underground silo, Colony Seven is led by Briggs the Benevolent
(Laurence Fishburne) and they have managed to institute a
meager standard of living where hydroponics provide
food. There are issues however, say like a simple
illness, humans now almost completely unable to fight off any
infection, infections which could kill them all.
Invariably, if you are infected, you will be sent outside,
given the choice to make the walk to death or be immediately
put death by Mason the Executioner (Bill Paxton). Mason,
however, has arbitrarily taken that awful choice away from
these poor people and is simply putting bullets in their
heads. Mason, I tell you.
Bad news though, as if life itself isn't bad news, but the
remote Colony Five has stopped responding. Briggs has
decided that a team should check on them since the colonies
promised to look after one another. Mason thinks that's
stupid. And while Mason is presented as the loose cannon
loon of this group, I'm with my man on this one. Can't
nothing good come from making the ten mile trip in eight feet
of snow to Colony Five. Briggs needs two volunteers to
roll out with him. Sam is volunteer one and some kid who
is bright and sunny and looks to have a future is the second
one. I know, right? Somebody just stick a red
shirt on this kid and call it a day.
Eventually our crew makes it to Colony
Five. It's not pretty. Everybody's dead, or in
some state of death, as feral, razor-toothed cannibals have
taken over. It was touch and go for a minute there, but
Briggs and Sam made it out safe. They even blew up
Colony Five with a handy stick of dynamite to insure they
won't be bothering anybody anymore. So much for
that.
Eventually Sam makes it back to Colony Seven… with the news
that hell is coming. But it shouldn't be a problem
because Mason the Executioner is such a badass, right?
Uh… no. He's actually a bitch. Will Colony Seven
survive the overrun of the Feral Zombie Cannibals?
The problem with 'The Colony' is the same problem that I've
run into with the overwhelming slate of movies I've seen
recently, in that it's competent and functional, but
ultimately forgettable.
Let's focus on some positives though in director Jeff
Renfroe's movie. Positive #1, Laurence Fishburne is in
this movie and having Laurence Fishburne in one's movie
automatically makes one's movie a better movie. As an
actor the man has such a presence and he delivers a line with
such conviction… I don't know if Mr. Fishburne has ever mailed
a performance in, but he's probably one of the rare actors
that could get away with it. Another positive is that
Bill Paxton is in this movie, as thirty years ago I saw young
Bill Paxton play a douche in the movie 'Weird Science', and
here he is doing it yet again. Think Bill Paxton can
play a douche? Why yes he can. I really liked the
atmosphere as I felt the cold just watching this movie even
though I saw it during the dog days of a Georgia summer, and
while the setup for this chilly apocalypse is sketchy, the
launch point for the story to follow was solid.
But when the story was supposed to get hyped, this being the
introduction of the feral super cannibals, that's when things
got sort of mundane. For starters, Laurence Fishburne
blew himself up in one of the more worthless self-sacrifices
we've seen in a movie in some time, and this turned the movie
over to the movies real star, Kevin Zegers, who was probably
great on 'Gossip Girl' but as a feral cannibal killing
machine, not so much. And does eating people rob one of
their gifts of speech? I get it, you've lost your
humanity and all, but I should still be able to do more than
growl. Also, the feral cannibals sure were robust.
I mean it took our vegan heroes days to cross that rough
terrain, but it took the human meat infused cannibals mere
hours, plus they can jump like LeBron, run like Bolt, and are
bullet resistant. Message? Meat is good.
Even if that meat is your uncle.
The thing is the action elements just weren't as interesting
as the human elements. While life in a post-apocalyptic
world isn't the most original launching point for a movie, the
start of this one had promise. Then it devolved into
what every other post apocalyptic movie becomes, and that is a
tired, run of the mill action movie, with the action we're
watching being kind of… well… run of the mill.
'The Colony' was okay, and it certainly wasn't a pain to sit
through, but alas it didn't do a heckuva lot to separate
itself from the post-apocalyptic genre that would generate a
hearty recommendation.
