By Keri O’Shea
When I sit down to watch modern post-apocalyptic movies, I always find it interesting to see what, from the point of view of the Zeitgeist, we’re afraid of these days. What do we think is waiting in the wings, ready to consume us? Whilst we do still get horror stories based around nuclear warfare – the disappointing Xavier Gens film The Divide (2011) as one example – it’s nothing like it was back in the mid-twentieth century, when death by nuke seemed to many to be a very real possibility and this found expression in multiple horror and science-fiction films of the day. Nope; now there’s a new kid on the block, because prophesying about climate change has provided us with another potential end to life as we know it. The Colony (2013) is one such film which weaves a decent, if at times oddly-familiar yarn out of the elements. (Do you see what I did there?)
The year is 2045 and an unending snow has decimated the world’s population, leaving only small groups of survivors quite literally holed up in underground bunkers, doing whatever they can to maintain their colonies by looking for ways to perpetuate their dwindling food supplies whilst ever looking for a break in the clouds, some way they could access the sun’s power to produce fresh food once again. Things aren’t going well: their animals are ailing in their unnatural confines (“You know you’re screwed when even the rabbits won’t fuck”) and these small communities live in fear of the spread of viruses like the ‘flu. As if this wasn’t all bad enough, they receive a distress signal from another nearby colony, Colony 5; as all of the colonies have a mutally-assured policy of altruism, a small party, led by head honcho Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) heads out to investigate… I hope I won’t be deemed guilty of spoilers if I say that what ensues is not a big catch-up with the neighbours after a false alarm.
There are many commendable aspects to this film; I must say, I’m quite surprised at how many reviews have overlooked these, and indeed at how vitriolic a lot of other reviews have been. Firstly, the aesthetics of the film are gorgeous. Although we’re back to the whole snow/nukes thing in terms of how each fictional world came to be the way it is, I couldn’t help but think of the Fallout games (particularly the uber-bleakness of Fallout 3) during several scenes in The Colony. The existence of small, self-contained communities living in bunkers is an obvious comparison, but many of the urban landscapes, with their ruined buildings dwarfing the travellers and the remnants of the world as-was looking oddly grating against the lifelessness of the surroundings could almost be interchangeable. And that is no bad thing, to my mind, as games and movies edge ever closer to one another, why not have this sort of crossover? One of The Colony’s key strengths is in these perilous, pleasing and immersive visuals.
I was also interested that in the initial set-up it’s the preservation of the population, not overpopulation, which is at issue. Sure, not all dystopian horrors hinge on the hell of burgeoning numbers, but I liked the more co-operative set-up that people were trying to maintain at the story’s beginning. Is the film any less bleak for it? Not at all; by starting out this way it’s able to set the benefits of altruistic behaviour against the selfish survival instinct, and I found this satisfying to watch. Performances are decent; I didn’t recognise Bill Paxton as the meglomaniacal Miller, but he does well with what he’s given, and of course Fishburne is an old hand at dystopia by now. Funnily, despite his youth the Jesse Pinkman-alike Kevin Zegers is a bit of an old hand in horror himself, and in his role as Sam he also provides an occasional narrative voiceover during The Colony; again, I didn’t find this an imposition.
So far, so good. It’d be patently untrue to suggest that this is a perfect movie, however, and The Colony does have issues. Although, for instance, the film balances tension and action very well in its first couple of acts, it does feel at later points that it’s not quite sure what it wants to be. Is it a brooding drama, or an action flick? It definitely swings more towards the ‘action’ side of things as it moves onwards towards its close, and in a few ways I feel that this weakens the film. It sacrifices a couple of enticing potential plot lines to throw in more explosions; there are some wasted opportunities here, as well as a few sequences for high action’s sake which had me scratching my head. Indeed, for the same action’s sake, a few plot lines are very difficult to accept whatsoever – again, this is a shame. The Colony also falls into the trap of adding a few clichés along the way: some proselytising here, some rushed exposition there; an obvious martyr here, an evident dickhead there…
Still, for all that, I was motivated to keep watching. The Colony after all does what films are still primarily meant to do: it entertained me, even if there were glitches at times. I was intrigued by The Threat in the film, curious about the protagonists and – essentially – I wanted to see how their story ended. Sure, it seems unlikely that The Colony will become anyone’s favourite film of all time. It’s not going to change cinema for ever, and it won’t change your life. But you could do a lot worse with ninety minutes of your life and if you’re a fan of the genre, you too may get something out of this one.
Oh, and…don’t watch the trailer. It spoilers the entire film. Do the people responsible for these things not want anyone to actually bother watching? Or are they simply stupid? Jeez…
The Colony will be released by Entertainment One on 20th January, 2014.