Extinction - 2018

I liked it, it was a good movie. Entertaining with a twist. I don't know if I'd watch it again, the beginning was rather slow, and now I know the twist there's no surprise anymore, but the first time I enjoyed it a lot.

I know some people complained about the annoying children, and I think they should not watch movies with children because this is how real children would react. There are exceptions, of course, but here, in this movie, it was important to show that they were common, normal little girls, no past hardship to toughen them up, no heroics of any kind, just average, common little girls.

The main actor is not a favourite of mine for sure, but then again, his rather common, quiet demeanor was important, there had to be nothing special about him... it was all important to the story and to maintain the surprise when you learn the truth.

The character of David should have had more space, really, it would have been an improvement overall. I think he should have been at the party, so you would have had the friends to sacrifice and the friend with a mysterious side that would have had you wondering whose side was he on for a while, since he couldn't stop and explain what was going on while the girls cried, the wife yelled, the husband turned his face this way and that and the enemies kept shooting ... I really think it would have been better.

They could have also made it better, in my opinion, because the nightmares were rather short, very short, you just had a glimpse of them, and I think they could have improved them a little, made them a bit longer. I understand they had to be careful not to show too much, but athey didn't really impress enough on the viewer the gravity of what he saw every night, the reason why he didn't seek help. 

Also, there are a few points that I will address at the end.

Going further into details, there are major spoilers from this point on!

It starts with Peter having yet again another nightmare, we learn that they happen so often his wife Alice can't stand it anymore, the both of them barely sleep anymore, but he refuses help saying he can do it alone... yeah, right. He keeps dreaming of some kind of attack, of his family being in danger.

He has a little girl called Lucy and an older daughter, Hannah. Their relationship is not the easiest because he seems to never be home, he forgets a lot... not surprisingly, since he can't sleep.

His boss, David, is worried about him and gives him the number of a clinic that will help him make the nightmares stop, but when he goes there, he meets a man who tells him that what they see is real but the others don't want them to remember... the man goes in anyway, saying he only wants it all to stop, but Peter leaves.

During a party at their house, a small happening with their friends Ray, Samantha and their daughter Megan, suddenly lights appear in the sky. Peter is surprised that everyone can see them, and Alice thinks he somehow saw the future in his dreams and wants to know what he saw, what happened to their children.

Ships come down, explosions, creatures shoot everyone in sight, their building is breached and they are all terrorised. Lucy leaves her hiding place to get her stuffed monkey, so when the "alien" enters, she's alone under the table... and yet, when they find themselves one in front of the other, the girl is not killed, the alien looks at her but doesn't shoot. After a few seconds, of course her father comes to the rescue, knocking the alien out and taking his weapon, even if he can't use it right away, he will have to modify it.

The family escapes the confines of the apartment and run to the roof - the floors down were too risky, too many aliens shooting people.

They find their friends, and try to go forward together. They must find a way to get to street level and reach Peter's workplace where they might be safe. Before they can reach the road, Ray is killed, and trying to save Megan who is about to fall down, Samantha dies as well.

Their family is now alone. Alice knows some tunnels underneath the city, and they run there. During all of this, there is a lot of crying from the daughters, of being incapable of moving or of going in the wrong direction... a lot of this can be annoying, or it could be annoying if it were showing grownups doing it. These were little girls who just saw people getting killed, it was totally natural that they were in shocked and scared to death.

Also, before someone insists on their being annoying, the truth is many adults would do the same, or worse, much worse, because when adults panic they kill others, that they want to or not.

So, they're all scared, but they go on feeling strongly that they must save their children, and reach a tunnel. What they don't know is that they are being tracked through the rifle he took, so all too soon the owner of the weapon finds them and in the shooting Alice is gravely injured. The girls are terrified, and he refuses to leave her behind. Peter captures the "alien", but instead of killing him he orders him to carry Alice while Peter keeps the weapon and looks after the girls. Peter also takes off his "mask", and underneath it we see the face of a boy. A totally normal looking young man, he doesn't look very alien at all, and they understand each other perfectly, no language problem or anything. 

They reach the point where David and his men are waiting for them. They are not surprised by the boy's face, or by anything that's happening, honestly. They don't look confused like Peter does.

They say that Alice is too injured and there's nothing they can do, but the boy, probably about to be killed or taken hostage, shouts that he can save her, or at least buy her more time, so Peter asks the others to leave the boy to him. 

When the base is also attacked, Peter and the guy stay behind while David and almost everyone else runs down to take a train to escape that place, promising to wait as long as they can for them.

The guy sort of cuts Alice open, but inside her body is not as it should be... Peter doesn't understand, but agrees when told that the only way to save her is to give her some of his energy, connect them with some kind of cable... and to do that, Peter has to cut himself open... which feels terrifying at first, until he starts and realises that he feels no pain and can do it easily enough. As soon as he is connected, he starts remembering things, everything that happened decades ago. Humanity built artificial intelligence to work the poor jobs, and then treated them like objects (not really surprising, we all know humanity loves slavery)

Despite opposite factions, the majority of humans started making trouble for them, they were attacked, in danger of being all destroyed, so Peter and all those around him started to fight. This is when he "knew" Alice, before that they had only vaguely seen each other while working.

All the "machines" started killing all the humans, to the point that the survivors evacuated the planet.

Peter and Alice found a couple of girls crying and scared, because their human parents had been killed and they were alone.

 After all the humans are gone, a clinic is established to wipe all their memories. They are not forced, everyone agrees to forget about being AI and start afresh, Peter Alice and the girls together as a real family. Only a few people choose to remember, because someone had to, to be ready when the humans inevitably came back. 

The young man, his name's Miles, helps them because he was surprised at what he found, nobody ever told him he had to kill children, fight families... he heard tales of what had happened from his grandparents, but he had been taught that all AI were like monsters. 

Miles stays behind while Peter and Alice try to reach the train. Hannah and Lucy wanted to wait for them, but someone finally grab Lucy and carried her to the train. 

When they finally arrive, the train is moving, they yell and... the train stops? 

Peter and Alice get on the train and they all leave, all remembering everything now, and they'll have to regroup and prepare for battle.

While they go, we see the bridge is made of many small parts that detach themselves after the train has passed and lower until they're under water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, they never said what year it was or where they were, or if the fight took place all over the planet... well, we can guess we're much in the future, and also it should be everywhere, otherwise why did humans leave the planet instead of changing Country or even Continent? It must be because the war was everywhere... not going to talk about how long did the fight go on, because I see that AI see time in a very different way, so it doesn't really mattered.

What I'm thinking about is the language. Did the US finally conquered the whole planet forcing everyone to speak their language? Or only the English-speaking humans managed to escape? I mean, there must be a reason why a young soldier arrives here from another planet and lands right where "people" might understand what he's saying... I mean, if he meant to explore, then yes, it could have been planned, but he wasn't supposed to talk to the synthetic, so it was pure chance that having to choose from a whole planet he landed right where people spoke his language? I mean, I suppose the attack was global, right? Or did they only attack this city? There must be many other communities of synthetics somewhere, otherwise this small group that filled one train could not have driven away the whole human race...

Cast 

Peter - Michael Peña 

Alice - Luzzy Caplan 

Hannah - Amelia Crouch 

Lucy - Erica Tremblay 

Ray - Lex Shrapnel 

Samantha - Emma Booth 

Megan - Lilly Aspell 

David - Mike Colter

Miles - Israel Broussard