The Colony Blu-ray Review
Aaron Walker
October 31st, 2013
What if one day it started snowing everywhere? What if it didn’t stop? What would happen to the human race if we could no longer survive outdoors for long periods of time? The new movie from veteran television director and documentary editor Jeff Renfroe (from HAVEN and BEING HUMAN), THE COLONY posits any human who would fit would go into large cellars and try to form a semblance of order. It’s a rocky situation, putting the remnants of our entire civilization in close proximity with little communication to the literal outside world, and one that has a lot of interesting potential… but does THE COLONY deliver?
At the opening of THE COLONY we’re introduced to Mason (Bill Paxton from TWISTER) and Sam (Kevin Zegers, Alec from THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES). Mason has been charged with protecting the entrance to colony 7, so when someone wanders into their area with a cold (just a cold!) Mason shoots him. Though he is not the official leader of their colony, Mason has a huge chip on his shoulder and would do anything, no matter how violent or deprecating, to protect THE COLONY.
When a distress signal is picked up from a neighboring colony Sam and leader Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) leave their new home and brave the deadly weather to check on their fellow survivors. But, when they arrive at the other outpost they find that the people are all missing and there is something much darker lurking in the halls.
Independent/smaller-budget films like THE COLONY usually have a very interesting premise or they would never be made. This film is no exception – I really like the foundation upon which this story is built. They don’t waste time trying to explain everything, the filmmakers are smart enough to know that if they present the world we can pick up the rest from the action. But the presentation of this film leaves much to be desired. In fact there are so many problems with this movie it is going to be hard to get into them all, so I’ll just pick the most glaring issues.
The first two major issues both have to do with the presentation/performance of the actors. Bill Paxton has never really worked well in serious roles. He just doesn’t have the charisma on screen to carry the entire picture. Same with Kevin Zegers, sure he is a good-looking guy but his acting is just awful. Even Fishburne seems bored by his role here and turns in a one note, rote performance. The second issue is the presentation of our characters, especially the leads, in their costumes/hair-styles/etc. These guys don’t look like they’ve survived the apocalypse, for the most part they look like movie stars who are slumming it for a few days.
The other major issue with this film is that the editing is just atrocious. Scenes aren’t property condensed so we get to watch the characters running across the frozen wasteland for long periods of time. When one group of people is chasing another, we go back & forth, and back & forth, back & forth, back & forth, etc., and it kills what little tension you might be feeling for the characters. The long and short of it – if you can get past these issues that plague THE COLONY you might enjoy it, but that is a seriously risky proposition. I cannot recommend this picture.
THE COLONY BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: (1080p Widescreen 2.35:1) The video is clear and HD looks nice but isn’t quite as immersive as it should be for THE COLONY.
Audio: (English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1) The audio is actually really well presented on this Blu-ray of THE COLONY. There is some nice mixing along with decent sound effects that really try to hold THE COLONY together.
Behind the Scenes Interviews with Cast & Crew (09:50) A sort of catch-all feature and the singular special feature on THE COLONY Blu-ray. The interviews don’t go much further than what you could gleam from the movie, so it’s a bit of a disappointment.
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