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Chilly

Watching the dystopian SF film The Colony was a bit like being trapped in a small, cold room while being forced to listen to other people's climate and feminists rants. Fortunately just as I was ready to give up on the whole thing it turned into a different movie, one that actually engaged me on a couple different levels.

In an unspecified future the elitists of humanity live on Kepler 209, a distant planet that they fled to after Earth became uninhabitable (thanks to humanity, of course.) Only these lucky few have become sterilized by radiation in just two generations (probably from lack of an ozone layer, I'm guessing; almost nothing about Kepler 209 is shown in the film) and want to return to Earth before they literally die out to see if that will jumpstart their reproductive systems. The science there is pretty non-viable, but maybe they have some magic pills to go along with their ridiculous new dream. Via some weather stations they left behind they find one small habitable zone and send a mission back to see if they can live there, which supposedly fails. The movie begins with the landing of the second mission.

Blake (brilliantly depicted by Nora Arnezeder) is a member of the second mission, and wants to find her father, who went missing with the first. Of course the landing of her capsule fails miserably, killing one crew member and wounding another. Earth seems to have turned into a giant, featureless tidal estuary that is perpetually wet and misty, and floods every day, so everyone lives in water or mud. There are a few rusting indicators of civilization, and everyone wears clothing. Sidebar: I doubt textiles would have lasted this long under these conditions, but okay. Raggedy, vicious humans then attack and grab Blake and her commander, who also quickly dies by suicide in captivity. Now Blake is on her own with people she can't communicate with, and then they're attacked by another bunch of raggedy vicious humans who abduct the female children.

Although she has absolutely no reason to help, Blake goes with one of the mothers to rescue her daughter, and ends up a prisoner. She's take to the rotting hulk of a naval ship where the only survivor of the first mission from Kepler (played by Iain Glen) has organized and civilized the "mud people." He welcomes her but sadly tells her that her father is dead. Blake quickly discovers he's a big fat liar, learns the truth from her imprisoned father, and then goes on her own mission to save the abducted girl, save the mud people and stop the elitists from Kepler from returning to Earth, with mixed results.

The movie had to cram a lot of story into just an hour and forty-four minutes, so there aren't a lot of nuances that probably would have made it better. It's also at times an overly long finger-wagging lecturing soapbox rant about everything that sucks with humanity, so be forewarned. Despite all that, I liked it, mainly due to the acting by Nora Arnezeder. I also preened a little over the sterilization via radiation on Kepler 209 plot note, as that's something I've predicted will happen to humans if we leave our planet to colonize Mars. I also liked the casting, which I thought was pretty spot-on for every role. This definitely isn't a feel-good film, but it was interesting and, when the action picks up, very absorbing. Available on Netflix.

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