Extinct Parent Guide

It’s 1835 and a community of donut-shaped creatures called Flummels live on a small island in the Galapagos. Siblings Op (Rachel Bloom) and Ed (Adam Devine) struggle to fit in with the rest of the Flummels and are often excluded from activities. While exploring an unknown part of the island, Op and Ed accidently time travel to modern day Shanghai, where they learn that Flummels are doomed to extinction. Determined to save their species, the pair travel through time (again) with the help of a small dog named Clarance (Ken Jeong) and a group of extinct animals.

This movie has a great premise. The time travel mechanism is kind of convoluted and makes no sense if you put any thought into it, but I’m willing to forgive that because the idea of a species trying to save itself from extinction is a fun one. Unfortunately, this is a case of a good idea with questionable execution. The first half or so of the runtime is surprisingly good: an above average children’s flick with some good jokes and interesting ideas. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stay that way. You can actually pinpoint the moment the writers ran out of ideas, right around the beginning of the third act. There’s a twist that comes out of nowhere and everything goes downhill from there. It’s too bad because, as I said, it started strong.

The voice actors are all fantastic, and the animation, though not as high quality as more expensive films, is well designed and consistent. I laughed far more than I expected, and my son even more so. There’s a lot going for this production; it’s just too bad the writers couldn’t stick the landing. Young children probably won’t notice, since they are blissfully ignorant of story structure, but adults can expect to be thoroughly disappointed. Although the story falls apart, the writers did still manage to get some positive messages across. Op learns to be more considerate of others and think before she acts. Ed learns to not worry so much about what other people think, and all the characters learn to work together and be more accepting.

As far as content is concerned, Extinct is fairly typical for the genre. There’s lots of slapstick shenanigans involving falls and hits that don’t leave a scratch, and a plot point revolving around explosives. It’s no worse than you’d see in most animated features. There is a sight gag involving a flask, though I wonder how many children will pick up on the alcohol implication. My son sure didn’t; he just thought it was hilarious. The word “booby” is also said repeatedly, as a joke about the species the Blue Footed Booby. All things considered, I think Extinct is worth a watch, at least for the exceptional first half, though parents have my permission to zone out after that.