Watching The Colony is a mistake. It's readily available on Netflix. The preview image clearly shows Bill Paxton and Lawrence Fishburne. One could see them and immediately think of Aliens or The Matrix or any other number of their hits. But watching The Colony is a wholly boring experience that will only faintly remind the viewer of other, better movies.
Before you can even notice how much everything in the post-apocalyptic winter landscape looks like The Thing, you're assaulted by the obnoxious knockoff John Carpenter soundtrack. Then the endless voice over begins, trying to be so clever as it introduces Sam and the world in which he lives. Characters don't have any actual conversations as much as they spout madlibs cliches back and forth as the plot's gears wind into motion. Fishburne's noble, loyal leader tries to keep his humanity while raging asshole Paxton wants to kill everyone that threatens to spread disease. Our bland lead man sits in the middle as nothing really happens for a long period of time.
Fishburne and the good guys take a very long (time-wise, and feeling-wise) journey to another distressed colony eventually. The slow, boring trod in the snow is finally shaken to life when our crew happens upon a man chopping a human leg into pieces inside the empty colony. The movie finally lurches into motion as it trades The Thing for any number of cannibalistic marauder pictures. The villains seem closest to the Firefly universe's Reavers, but with none of the nuance, intrigue, or menace.
A lot of the chasing, running, and getaway from the Reavers actually works. Maybe just ANYTHING happening looks appealing next to the staring out into the snow and bad dialogue that precedes it. Who knows. There's a particularly cool fighting and chasing sequence through the vents when the evil gang inevitably assaults the home base. Our hero Sam watches a couple weirdly repetitive honorable sacrifices to help him escape. There's a hoary plot with seeds and the world thawing and a hope for the future that feels tacked on just to give the movie some sort of a point. Anything just to end the movie.
The Colony attempts a few genres- post-apocalyptic, zombie, survivalist, slick action and fails at all of them. Paxton and Fishburne really sleepwalk through their scenes until their stunt doubles take over for the mayhem. The lead really makes no impression and doesn't really make the viewer care if he survives "The Colony" or not. That's a bit of a problem for a movie begging you to cheer his escape from certain death at every turn.
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