REVIEW: The Colony
For some reason, too many science fiction films dwell on disasters and not on the sense of wonder of being in space. The majesty and grandeur of the universe doesn’t hold enough promise and therefore release after release seems to focus on the terrible things that will happen to us out there. The latest such release, The Colony, is now out on disc from Lionsgate, which they hope will amuse you until they inflict Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall.
Here , we have Louise Blake (Nora Arnezeder) aboard the Ulysses 2, exploring what is left of Earth after several centuries. The ship, probably like its predecessor, crashes, and she is the sole survivor. We flip back and forth between not-very-interesting flashbacks about Louise’s childhood (played by Chloé Heinrich) , focusing on the relationship with her father Sebastian Roché, and what she sees of a water-logged Earth. Danger arrives in the form of Gibson (Iain Glen), warlord of a band of survivors/scavengers.
It all feels very familiar from production design to plot points. Writer/director Tim Fehlbaum doesn’t seem to have anything interesting to say about man’s future , mankind itself, or much of anything else.
The film is out on Blu-ray and Digital HD and looks like a perfectly fine AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1, equally matched by the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track.
Given the film’s lackluster reception and box office, there’s no surprise at the paucity of Special Features. There’s the aspirational Audio Commentary from Fehlbaum and Visions of the Future: Making The Colony (19:26), a perfunctory behind-the-scenes piece.
You can easily skip this one unless you really enjoy SF stories on a post-apocalyptic Earth.