infinitejourneys First third of movie was alright. Rest was terrible. I had some hope for this movie since I like these actors, but it was so disappointing that I feel I have to say something. Spoilers ahead. Reasons why this movie stinks: First of all, someone with the type of military training that Fishbourne's character supposedly has would never be so stupid as to take two kids to check out what happened to a colony of 50 people that suddenly went silent except for a distress signal. Leaving Paxton's character behind even though he has military training and then asking civilians to stop him with little to no training, was just colossally stupid. Hate to say it, but he deserved to die. Oh, and when a colony of 50 people goes silent and all you find at the entrance are pools of blood, only a total moron goes in with a couple of kids and such limited weapons.Telling the kid to grow a spine because he had enough intelligence to know it was a dumb idea is the worst. Gee, wonder what happened here...50 people couldn't handle it, but these two kids and I will save them!!! Right.Second, why couldn't they do a better job with Paxton? It was a lazy casting decision. "Hey, we don't have to build the character so much if we get a guy who has experience playing jerks because the audience will buy into it more easily."Third, if you have a massive structure made of concrete and steel, and you're able to make the whole thing collapse, burying cannibal-vampire- wannabes at the bottom under tons of debris, they aren't coming after you unless they are really vampires. But these jokers aren't. They're just really stupid cannibals who wish they were vampires.Fourth, if you blow up a bridge over a huge icy chasm that clearly requires the stupid cannibals chasing you to spend perhaps days going around the long way, I'm pretty certain they'd be like, "Forget this. Don't we have a bunch of meat back at the last place we trashed? Maybe we should just go eat that." But maybe they used some rope to get across? No, they aren't that smart. Besides, if they did do that, they would've caught the kid before he had a chance to collapse in front of his home base. But wait, they must've climbed down into the chasm so they could wander around in the snow until they found Captain Dynamite's head to shove at the camera when they caught up to the kid and his colony. Yay!Fifth, Paxton's character was a dufus who decided to go psychotic for reasons. Even when things seemed to be going downhill, he repeatedly made the worst possible choices. "Hey, whatever happened to them resulted in the death of my old military buddy, but this kid is lying or delusional because reasons." "Hey, even though I saw some awful stuff and came here with my pal to make sure nothing like that ever happened again, I'm somehow just a general scumbag."Sixth, chief stupid-cannibal-vampire-wannabe always happens to somehow avoid getting killed, even though he's quite often near the front of the action. If that were all, it would be terrible enough to ruin the movie. However, that isn't all at all. Somehow, when Paxton's character blows up what appears to be a propane tank, the explosion blows the chief idiot into the ducts behind the fleeing characters so he can continue pursuit. This is the worst decision in movies since having Legolas surf/skate in LOTR. Seventh, no, just no. Eighth, "Hey, these people with clear skies have no seed to sustain them. But grabbing 2 or 3 jars of random seeds will save us all!" "Hey, Paxton is a jerk, but let me give him my gun because reasons." "Hey, we're inside a huge structure made of concrete and steel, but we can hear a couple of dudes banging on the front door throughout the colony like the entire structure is a tin can" "Hey, did we really just abandon all those bodies (50) we just butchered at the last place so we could hunt down this kid and the ten people with him?"

Leofwine_draca THE COLONY is a mid-budget Canadian post-apocalypse action movie about survivors struggling to make it in a world that has entered a new Ice Age. There are shades of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW in the scenes of characters trekking through an Arctic tundra in search of fellow man, but overall this turns out to be a straight rip-off of THE THING mixed with bits from ALIENS.The opening of the film sees survivors huddling in a freezing base and dying off thanks to a deadly flu (a sub-plot that turns out to be rather extraneous). When they lose contact with a fellow colony, a trio of men decide to make a trip to find out what's happened, only to run afoul of a mortal enemy. The film features a good role for Laurence Fishburne, who gets to play a likable character for a chance, and a chance for Kevin Zegers, of FROZEN fame, to shine as the youthful lead. Bill Paxton also appears but is somewhat underutilised until the climax.THE COLONY features endless CGI landscapes and the like, which didn't impress me too much, and average direction. I was disappointed that the villains turn out to be simple cannibal types who aren't very scary at all, and the chief villain is almost identical to an incidental bad guy in GAME OF THRONES. Still, the film does boast a fast pace and plenty of action, so it's an easy enough watch.

The Couchpotatoes I saw a couple post-apocalyptic horror movies this week and this one could have been one of the better ones if the story would have been more believable. Because honestly I don't see how heavily armed survivors could not win against a couple of dozens of cannibalistic humans with machetes and axes. The beginning was good and intriguing but the end was just poor in my eyes. Could have been much better. The actors were all good, much better then in the other post-apocalyptic movies I just saw, but then again it will just stay a movie that I will forget about in a couple of weeks. The filming was also good, nothing to fault there. Too bad the story was not that good.

quincytheodore The Colony could have flourished with good visual and cast, but it squanders the potential before it enters the second act. The main issue is how stagnant and predictable the plot progresses, screenplay it uses is the very generic template for sci-fi genre. It barely possesses any unique qualities, and by the time the movie is over, it will be either forgettable or interchangeable with any mediocre films.Story follows the survivors on Colony 7, led by Briggs (Laurence Fishburne). They have been plagued with the dangerous common cold, in which everyone who even shows symptoms are quarantined, possibly exiled or even killed. They also receive strange message from Colony 5, their neighbor colony and must go to examine whether it's real or not. The overall concept holds some promise, but there are far too many boring narratives and stupid behaviors from the characters to fully realize its prospect.Script is highly foreseeable, down to the sob stories of the survivors, which to the film's credit, would be salvageable if it actually portrays them instead of having guys talk about it. Characters also perform a few needless monologues that don't help setting the tension, they merely drag the movie by a few minutes. Furthermore, many of the characters' decision are moronic, the film tries to convince audience with stress or fear excuse, and even if that's true, it's still stupid by any stretch. This is the equivalent of seeing someone decide to split up in horror flick.Visual is pretty exceptional, it has good sharp contour and vibrant color. However, most of it are used in ordinary hallway full of pipes or barren wastelands, the most notably landmark is broken bridge which could very well be featured in half dozen other sci-fi films. The actors aren't that bad either, it's just the material is too thin and lacking any suspense for them to capitalize on.The Colony might have bits that could've worked, but with too predictable execution and uninspiring plot, a visit isn't exactly recommended.