The Colony (2013)

Why so much hype?

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A different way of telling a story

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

SPOILERS! The first half was very enjoyable. Laurence Fishburne's character's nobleness set against Bill Paxton's character's almost cartoony evil was very promising and well acted by both. A great plot point was introduced where the climate change could be reversed. Then at almost precisely the 50% mark, it turned into what was essentially a zombie film. Nothing was made of Fishburne's and Paxton's characters' animosity, the lead "feral" survived narm levels of violence without any ill effects, people with guns faced up against zombies and waited forever to pull the trigger. It was frustrating to watch. Watch the first half, you've got an 8* movie right there. The second half is 3* at best.

The plot of this film is unbelievably dull and slow, in fact as best as I can describe it, take the 1985 film 'Day of the Dead', subtract the zombies and replace them with some bizarre moaning sounds in a defunct Ontario power plant. Yup, that's The Colony.Now, that being said, this is still definitely a film worth checking out because most of the acting was excellent. The cast and crew throw everything into their roles and literally become their characters with a huge amount of talent (Charlotte Sulivan seemed extremely out of place though and I think she just got put in the film as eye candy. She did not look like a rugged survivor of the Snowpocalypse, no offense. I'm a girl so I'm not just saying that to be sexist or something, she seriously looks like she should not have been cast in this film or she could have at least dressed down her looks to suit the film's environment). Laurence Fishburne as a wise former soldier, Julian Richings as a traumatized and abandoned radio operator, Bill Paxton as an obnoxious dictator, Atticus Mitchell as a young but ambitious teenager trying to prove himself to the team, these actors and many others all do exceptionally well and make their on-screen moments feel realistic and intense beyond words. As for the scenery, a lot of barren snow is quite boring but the abandoned industrial plants which are in reality actually some of Ontario's shut-down power stations from eras gone by, really give the harrowing moments of the film a more sinister appeal.This film might be one you'll appreciate more if you're a B-movie buff or if you love those "so-bad-they're-good" type horror films, even if you're a fan of weird Canuck indie flicks, you'll probably get more out of this one than the average viewer. It's definitely an impressive one but I think many of the shots where it is just minutes upon minutes of men wandering through the snow could have been significantly cut down and the moments with the character conflict expanded.

I hadn't even read the synopsis for the movie before picking it up at the local secondhand DVD store. All I saw was what looked like an arctic disaster movie and one that had both Bill Paxton and Laurence Fishburne on the cast list.Director Jeff Renfroe manages to start out with a rather impressive feat of establishing a very interesting setting and a fair story, along with some detailed characters. But that all changed to the worse and the movie fell into mediocrity once it was revealed what had happened to the inhabitants of the neighboring colony. I just didn't like that approach to the story one bit, it was just ludicrous.I liked the arctic setting of the movie, and the visual effects department did manage to make it look realistic and that did a lot for the movie. Because if a movie like this had poor effects and CGI it would just collapse like a poorly constructed card house.Kevin Zegers didn't really have what it took to deliver in this movie, and as such then he wasn't a strong main actor for the movie, which did slow down the movie a bit. He is usually an adequate actor, but didn't really pull it off in "The Colony". It was without a doubt Bill Paxton who were the one carrying the movie, despite having only a secondary role in the movie. Laurence Fishburne was there simply because he is Laurence Fishburne.It was a shame that director Jeff Renfroe opted for that approach to the incident of the neighboring colony, because it was a severe crippling blow to the movie. "The Colony" had potential, but it was abruptly cut down by the direction in which the story went.

I really liked the idea of this movie and it started out pretty good but quickly went downhill. There were a few decent parts, and you will like this movie if you are into the lame slasher kinda zombie movies but it just wasn't for me. I do not like the intense action, shaking camera, followed by over used tag lines. "Come and get it!" Pretty poor acting especially by Laurence Fishburne. Not very believable and way to much suspense building up to what is already expected. Dramatic over used score that we have all heard a thousand times before in every other slasher/zombie movie. Some of the action shots and effects were so bad it was embarrassing. Punches that weren't any where close to the intended target. Axe hits with no force behind them at all.