(Canada, 95 min.)
Dir. Jeff Renfroe, Writ. Pascal Trottier, Patrick Tarr, Jeff
Renfroe, Svet Rouskov
Starring: Kevin Zegers, Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton,
Charlotte Sullivan.
 |
| Kevin Zegers and Laurence Fishburne in The Colony. An eOne Films release |
The Colony
is the Paris Hilton of Canadian cinema. It has an attractive shell, but it’s
dead on the inside. The $16 000 000 hopeful cash cow certainly looks
impressive, yet one hopes that some of the money could have gone towards a
better script. One wishes The Colony
was something to rave about since it would be nice to have a decent mainstream moneymaker
to give Canucks a jolt. It’s all so dead-on-arrival, though, that local
audiences could feel reaffirmed that Canadian movies are “boring” and not worth
their money when Michael Bay gives them more bang for their buck.
Briggs assumes a mission away
from the colony in order to answer a distress call from Colony 5. He requests
that two youngsters, Sam (Kevin Zegers, Transamerica) and Graydon (Atticus Dean Mitchell),
accompany him on a survival mission. Briggs leaves Sam’s girlfriend, Kai
(played by Edwin Boyd’s Charlotte
Sullivan), to man the fort, which angers his hotheaded second-in-command Mason
(played by Bill Paxton). What could go wrong?
Briggs leads Sam and Graydon
on a trek akin to a snowshoe voyage of The
Road. Along the way, they encounter snowdrifts, bloodthirsty cannibals, and
Bucky Haight. The trio of colonists are in a fight for survival, but one can
hardly be moved to care since The Colony
plays like a ninety-five minute montage of blood, gore, and stupidity. The film speeds at such a rapid pace that viewers won’t
feel any connection to the characters or to the story. As a result, there’s
little suspense—or entertainment value—to all the senseless action playing out
onscreen. Even the film’s one legitimate plot twist is undercut because one can
hardly be moved to notice the death of a central character. “Oh, that happened,”
bored beavers will probably say.
Even the spectacular
production value of The Colony must
be viewed with disinterested detachment since special effects can’t carry a
film on its own. The Colony boasts some
of the most impressive visuals and technical work I’ve seen in a recent Canadian feature
film. Equally noteworthy is the film’s atmospheric use of location, as The Colony was shot in a decommissioned
NORAD army base in North Bay Ontario. The
Colony is the first film ever to be shot in the underground base “The
Hole”, which was nicknamed by military personnel during the Cold War after it
was built in 1963. Playing out sixty feet below the Earth’s surface, The Colony certainly looks creepy. It
just never feels creepy.
Even the visuals and the
atmosphere do little to further such a thin script. One can’t help but remember
another recent snowy sci-fi Canadian production, Frost, which made exceptionally better use of cinematic imagination
and cunning allegory. The chilling greenscreened landscapes of Frost vastly eclipse the visual effects
of The Colony, and the former film
packs more story in thirteen minutes than the latter does in ninety-five. Frost uses visuals to accentuate a great
film; The Colony uses a gimmick to
mask a bad one.
Nothing at the heart of The Colony seems to beat. Even the
Hollywood actors seem to be lazing, as Fishburne is merely OK in the role of
valorous Briggs, but he brought more range to most episodes of CSI. Paxton, on the other hand, is
painfully unwatchable—he looks as if the chilly Canadian North has frozen his
acting skills. Suck it up princess: buy some Hot Rods and get the job done.
The films two Canadian stars,
Zegers and Sullivan, perform better in their limited roles. The Colony isn’t really an actors’
showcase, though. They mostly get to point, shoot, and run.
The Colony
seems to be a dying breed of Canadian genre films that confirm to us once again
that we simply can’t churn out the moneymakers that Hollywood can. I’m all for
commercial Canadian films (see: Barney’s Version or Goon), but one can’t help but note how many superior projects could have
benefited from The Colony’s
resources. The Canadian film market is essentially left with a few nuggets
tucked away to remain hidden or, hopefully, to enjoy healthy runs on single screens in Toronto, Vancouver, and
Montréal, while audiences all over the country are stuck with fool’s gold. Why
not let more audiences talk about a Canadian film that’s actually worth seeing?
Audiences generally know a stinker when they see one, so poor word of mouth
can’t carry a slick Canadian film through a theatrical run. Why spend so much on a VFX film that's barely worth watching on Netflix?
It’s baffling that so much
talent and money was sunk into the film when the main problem—the script—was
there from the start. The snow-laden colonial setting has the guise for an arty
allegory on global warming and consumption, but the zombieland bloodfest feels
tacked on from a bad rewrite, and The
Colony thus falls short on both ends. Even local content isn’t reason
enough to champion this film. And I say this as someone who recommended House at the End of the Street.
Rating: ★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★ (out of ★★★★★)
The Colony is currently playing in wide(ish) release.
