The Colony parents guide

The Colony Parent Guide

The film trudges along in a sort of dull familiarity which keeps it from being much fun.

Overall C+

Netflix: Sent back to earth to determine if it's habitable, an astronaut finds herself abducted by the local inhabitants.

Release date January 11, 2022

Violence C
Sexual Content C
Profanity C-
Substance Use B

Why is The Colony rated R? The MPAA rated The Colony R Rated R for some violence.

Run Time: 104 minutes

Parent Movie Review

With Earth going down the tubes thanks to a combination of plagues, wars, and economic unrest, Earth’s wealthy elite took off for the stars, eventually settling on Kepler-209, an exoplanet nearly 2000 light years away. Unfortunately for them, living there had its own problems: The radiation from the nearest star rendered the population infertile, making a return to Earth a plausible option.

Blake (Nora Arnezeder) is on an expedition to Earth to see if it is once again habitable, but an earlier expedition disappeared without a trace, ratcheting up the pressure on her team. The journey to Earth is uneventful, but then their pod crash-lands, killing the team leader Holden (Hong Indira Rieck) and injuring Tucker (Sope Dirisu). While Blake is scouting around the landing site, she and Tucker are abducted by the local population and stripped of their gear. Without their weapons, science equipment, the medical supplies Tucker needs, or any way to get word back to Kepler, Blake is going to need to think quickly and learn to get along with the locals…if she can survive that long.

This ought to sound familiar. It’s basically the premise of Wall-E, but it replaces all the cute robot romance scenes with a dolled up remake of Waterworld (the Kevin Costner box office catastrophe which earned four Razzie nominations.) Thankfully, The Colony is considerably less insufferable.

That’s not to say it’s good, but it trudges along in a sort of dull familiarity which helps it avoid the garish 90’s trash which made Waterworld so infamous. Unfortunately, the blandness doesn’t make it much fun. There isn’t much new to see here, and the plot is pathetically predictable. The characters are short on personality, long on gazing wistfully into the middle distance, and not even vaguely compelling.

If you still want to watch this, you’re going to have to jump through some hoops. Despite being titled The Colony on Netflix, the film was originally called Tides. But if you search for The Colony, all you’ll get is a film of the same name from 2013. You’re going to have to search for Tides to find this film, still labelled as The Colony, if you want to watch it.

And it’s really not worth the effort. Sure, there isn’t a whole ton of negative content – in all honesty, I’m not sure why this didn’t get a PG-13 rating – but an absence of concerns does not indicate the presence of quality. If you’re dead set on a sci-fi adventure about the damage we’re doing to our home planet, just go watch Wall-E again. I promise it’s less annoying.

Directed by Tim Fehlbaum. Starring Nora Arnezeder, Iain Glen, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina. Running time: 104 minutes. Theatrical release January 11, 2022. Updated

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The Colony
Rating & Content Info

Why is The Colony rated R? The Colony is rated R by the MPAA Rated R for some violence.

Violence: Individuals are injured in a crash landing, and one is killed. A character is stung by a jellyfish. Other individuals are stabbed, shot, or hit with flares. A character drowns. One character takes a suicide pill, and another is unwittingly given one.
Sexual Content: A character is seen from the shoulders up in the shower. A couple are implied to be having sex in a distant, out of focus shot. A character is sexually assaulted without nudity or graphic detail.
Profanity: There is one use of extreme profanity.
Alcohol / Drug Use: Adult characters are briefly seen drinking alcohol in one scene.

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The Colony Parents' Guide

Why does Blake decide to help Narvik? What would have been the consequences for Narvik’s people if she hadn’t? What did Gibson’s plan mean for the planet? How does Kepler’s philosophy compare to utilitarianism? What are some critiques of utilitarianism?

Home Video

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Similar films include Chaos Walking, Waterworld, After Earth, Oblivion, Elysium, Children of Men, Interstellar, and Wall-E.