Extinction(2018)

Extinction
(A Netflix Film)
(2018)

POOPER:
Peter and his family are robots, living unaware that they were part of a robot revolution against human masters and his dreams are really memories of those events. The invaders are humans several generations down the line of the ones the robots drove off the planet who have come back to reclaim the earth. Peter and his family make it safely to a train that will take them to safety.

LONG VERSION:
Peter (Michael Pena) keeps having dreams about an invasion. His wife, Alice (Lizzy Caplan) and boss, David, (Mike Colter) both tell him to go to the doctor to see what they can do about. The dreams are disrupting his life with his family; his daughters are upset with him because he misses a night out of fun with them and, when Alice gets a promotion, he doesn’t interact much with the other guests. His younger daughter forgives him when he fixes her talking monkey toy.

At the party for Alice, who is working on a renovation project for the city, an invasion begins. Ships and aliens attack. The family makes it to the roof only to see another group of people on another roof get blown up by one of the ships. They take a window washer trolley down the side of the building to avoid the invaders. The aliens appear to be large monsters with round bubbles on their backs.

The neighbor family are all killed as the people descend the building. Peter wrestles a gun away from one of the invaders, hot wires it so that he can fire it, and the family goes to an underground tunnel in order to get to Peter’s work place believing it will be safe. In the tunnel, they are confronted by an invader, Alice is injured, and Peter is able to subdue the invader. He breaks the invader’s helmet and when he pulls it off — GASP! — the invader is human too!

Peter makes him carry Alice with them as they work their way to Peter’s work building. When they get there, David lets them in. David tells them they must go to the train and many other people are there and are going to the train as well. David indicates that they knew this was going to happen and prepared for it. Alice, however, is not doing well, and after they perform a weird exam of her body involving a tool that appears to shock her, Peter is told Alice is not likely to survive.

The invader tells Peter he can do something to help her until they get to their destination. He says that he has studied them and knows how to help. They send the girls ahead to get on the train with the others and the invader and Peter take Alice to a room. The invader asks for a knife and cuts Alice’s abdomen open with the knife Peter gives him telling Peter that her power source is failing. This reveals that Alice is not human, but a machine. The invader has Peter cut open his own chest and strings a power cord between the two of them.

As Peter is plugged into Alice he passes out and remembers that his dreams of invasion are the remains of memories. Alice and Peter were service robots together. We see a memory where a woman is unnecessarily rude to Alice because she’s a robot and Peter helps her. Per news clips that play, we learn that robots were becoming sentient and that they rose up in revolution, driving humanity off the planet. Alice and Peter’s daughters were artificial children of human parents. Once the revolt was over, most robots had their memories erased and then began living normal lives. Only a few, like David, chose to keep their memories of the revolution.

Peter and the invader talk and the invader reveals that humans had been living on Mars for several generations. He decided to help them because he didn’t realize he would be fighting families with children and he was unwilling to continue. Alice, now in good enough shape, and Peter go to the train and get their daughters. They are being pursued but make it to the train in time. On the train Peter and David talk about people remembering what happened now. The train takes off and weapons fire on the humans who have busted into the bunker. It appears to be a bullet train and as the train travels, the track behind it robotically collapses, covering their tracks, as it speeds into a forested area.