Extinct (DVD) – Movie Review
Follow Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Director: David Silverman, Raymond S. Persi
Distributor: Belga Home Video
Duration: 84 minutes

Extinct (DVD) – Movie Review

Site Score
7.9
Good: Original, Simple and fun
Bad: A bit predictable at times
User Score
9.0
(1 votes)
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Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

A lot of animated movies tend to end up with ‘hit-or-miss’ kind of experiences. We have seen many directors and animators try to create something new and original, only for many of these creations to end up in the endless whirlpool of mediocre animated movies. Now and then, a movie and/or series breaks through, and then we get classics such as Shrek, Toy Story, Cars, and so on. Now, we get treated to a new contender trying to take on the competition with a very original concept: The Flummels. In Extinct, we get to meet adorable donut-shaped creatures, who are sadly on the brink of extinction. Even though we liked the concept, we had somewhat low expectations for this one. We were proven quite wrong and ended up enjoying this one quite a lot.

We are thrown back into the 19th century, where the odd-looking Flummels are living happily on a remote island. Sadly, two Flummels, Op (Rachel Bloom) and Ed (Adam Devine) don’t really fit in that well with the other Flummels. They are often doing their own thing, hoping to impress the group, but more than often this backfires. When they are excluded from the flower festival for destroying the float for the parade, Op comes up with a plan to pick flowers from the mountain area that is deemed too dangerous to go to, hoping to impress the rest of the group. Upon discovering a special flower, it opens and draws them into a time warp, where they end up in present-day Shangai. While this is all fun and games at first, they learn that their species goes extinct mere moments after they left due to a volcano eruption. They will need to get back to the past to warn their fellow Flummels to have a chance at surviving this mass extinction. With the help of Clarance (Ken Jeong) and a few other ‘Extinctables’, they literally race against time to save the rest of the Flummels.

The flow of this movie is somewhat common for the genre. The characters are properly introduced and they soon find themselves in a problematic situation. When things seem to head toward the right direction, the movie still throws a few curveballs your way, eventually building up toward the unavoidable happy ending. This traditional formula works perfectly, and it does help that the movie has a lot of loveable characters. We didn’t encounter a single dull moment, but certain events were perhaps a bit too predictable at times.

In terms of voice acting, this movie has an impressive cast backing things up. In the leading roles, we mostly hear Adam Devine, Rachel Bloom, and Ken Jeong, who all do a superb job bringing their respective characters to life. Not only are the main roles voiced by impressive cast members, but the supporting roles are also of the same quality. We see names such as Richard Kind, Jon Lovitz, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong, Henry Winkler, Catherine O’Hara, and many more, pass the revue. From start to finish, the acting is of top-shelf quality.

Sadly, this DVD edition of Extinct comes with no notable extras on the disc. Outside of some different language options, and a few release trailers of other Belga Home Video releases, there is no special content to be found that revolves around Extinct or the adorable Flummels. It would have been fun to get some views on how the movie was made, how the creators came up with these original creatures, or even just a few short fun clips for children would have been appreciated. That being said, the movie stands quite tall on its own.

Conclusion

Extinct is an enjoyable movie, and we even hope there will be a sequel in the near future. Even though the events that unfold throughout the course of the film are often predictable, we were thoroughly entertained, and we were very impressed by the cast backing up this project. The animations were also decently handled, and this film could easily compete with other bigger productions. Even though the massive holes in the creatures were something we had to get used to, we can recommend this movie for fans of animated movies, or those looking to have a fun evening with their kids.

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Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)
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Extinct (DVD) - Movie Review, 9.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

1 Comment

  1. […] With what type of candy/snack do we compare the Flummels’ body in our review? (Answer can be found by clicking here.) […]

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