Firstly, let's make this clear: "The Colony" is a B movie and needs to be reviewed as such. Unfortunately "The Colony" doesn't actually know what sort of B movie it is. It's sure enough that it's post-apocalyptic but after that it gets a bit lost. Is it an intelligent, sci-fi thriller? Or would it rather be a full-on zombie-style action flick complete with blood and gore? In the end it tries to be both and ends up falling somewhere between the two.
It starts well enough, setting up a slightly preposterous but logically thought out apocalypse, taking time to explore that and also the relationships between the survivors, highlighting tensions and foreshadowing future conflict. However, after that it chucks all that to one side and devotes an awful to of time and effort to a conflict with zombie-style cannibals. Before going back to the original conflicts. And then repeating itself with another cannibals showdown.
This flitting back and forth means that neither section really gets developed enough or receives the conclusion that it deserves. If they'd either done away with the cannibals and focused on the internal conflict between the survivors or brushed over the actually reasons behind the apocalypse to free up time for full-on, seat-of-your-pants cannibal terror then "The Colony" could have ended up a cult gem. Instead in ends up as a highly forgettable mess.
Which is a real shame as you've got a good cast and a great setting. Both Laurence Fishburne and Bill Paxton do the best they can with the material they've been given but neither really gets enough screen time and there really isn't enough time of them facing off against each other. The former NORAD headquarters has a great post-apocalyptic vibe and makes for a very pretty backdrop but if more time had been spent in one of the silos rather than dividing time between two then it could really have come to life. I wanted to see crawlspaces, walls blown through, traps made with the facilities. We get none of that.
So, in summation, a missed opportunity due to the writer failing to actually decide which film he wanted to make before he started writing.
It starts well enough, setting up a slightly preposterous but logically thought out apocalypse, taking time to explore that and also the relationships between the survivors, highlighting tensions and foreshadowing future conflict. However, after that it chucks all that to one side and devotes an awful to of time and effort to a conflict with zombie-style cannibals. Before going back to the original conflicts. And then repeating itself with another cannibals showdown.
This flitting back and forth means that neither section really gets developed enough or receives the conclusion that it deserves. If they'd either done away with the cannibals and focused on the internal conflict between the survivors or brushed over the actually reasons behind the apocalypse to free up time for full-on, seat-of-your-pants cannibal terror then "The Colony" could have ended up a cult gem. Instead in ends up as a highly forgettable mess.
Which is a real shame as you've got a good cast and a great setting. Both Laurence Fishburne and Bill Paxton do the best they can with the material they've been given but neither really gets enough screen time and there really isn't enough time of them facing off against each other. The former NORAD headquarters has a great post-apocalyptic vibe and makes for a very pretty backdrop but if more time had been spent in one of the silos rather than dividing time between two then it could really have come to life. I wanted to see crawlspaces, walls blown through, traps made with the facilities. We get none of that.
So, in summation, a missed opportunity due to the writer failing to actually decide which film he wanted to make before he started writing.