Susan Granger’s review of “The Colony” (RLJ/Image Entertainment)
Making a quick pit stop in theaters en route to DVD, this dull sci-fi actioner from Canada has all the predictable horror elements, as a band of hapless inhabitants of a devastated Earth struggles to survive in perpetual winter. Apparently, the weather-controlling machines that were built after global warming threatened the planet malfunctioned. As one of the men notes, “One day, it started to snow
– and it never stopped.”
Former military man Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) struggles to maintain some semblance of civilization in the underground bunker known as Colony Seven, while coping with food shortages and an overriding fear of every communicable disease, including the common cold, despite the trigger-happy tendencies of his Army buddy Mason(Bill Paxton). When a garbled distress call comes in from neighboring Colony Five, Briggs trudges out into the icy wasteland on a rescue mission; he’s accompanied by Sam (Kevin Zegers of TV’s “Gossip Girl”) and teenage Graydon (Atticus Mitchell), leaving Sam’s girlfriend Kai (Charlotte Sullivan) in charge. What they discover is that marauding cannibals are devouring Colony Five’s inhabitants. As they trek back to Colony Seven, they suddenly realize that the feral, ferocious flesh-eaters are following their footprints in the snow – meaning they and their friends will soon have to fight for their lives.
Weakly scripted by director Jeff Renfroe, along with Patrick Tarr, Pascal Trottier and Svet Rouskov, it’s derivative and utterly foreseeable – with no surprises. Fine actors like Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton and Kevin Zegers do the best they can with thinly sketched characters that are simply caricatures, while Dru Viergever grimaces as the cruel, pointy-tooted cannibal leader, ominously grunting, “RaRRRR…”. Filmed on a decommissioned NORAD base in Ontario it’s atmospheric and claustrophobic, filled with graphic violence.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Colony” is a formulaic 4, yet another wannabe post-apocalyptic thriller.
