Extinct is classic example of a kitchen sink film … and an even more classic example of why kitchen sink films fail. It has many, many elements of something an entertaining film might contain … but none of them really work. Instead of improving what might work, however, it just introduced more things.
The film is, I suppose, basically about the fate of an Extinct mammalian species known as flummels. Flummels are moronic donut-like creatures who roll from place to place, which is kind of cool – so why did they evolve arms and legs? This reasonable question gets even more reasonable when you learn that flummels are unique to the Galapagos Islands. According to the mythology of the story, the entire population were destroyed by a volcano shortly before Charles Darwin discovered them.
Oh, but this film has so much more to offer than a sad mock-history lesson. Two outcaste flummels, Op and Ed (voices of Adam Devine and Rachel Bloom) –and I honestly do not care which is which—are exiled from the group for being idiots, which is a pretty low bar as flummels are mostly party animals. In their attempts to ingratiate themselves back into their tribe, Ed and Op fall into a time-travel portal and find themselves in modern Shanghai.
It gets better. The one creature in Shanghai who recognizes them as members of a suddenly not-so-Extinct species befriends them and leads them to a time travel laboratory. This one creature? A poodle named Clarence (Ken Jeong), the pet of a lost mad scientist.
It gets better. In the lab, we meet amiable reps of lots of Extinct species including Dottie the dodo, Bernie the 
Tasmanian tiger, Alma the Macrauchenia, and Hoss the triceratops. And these guys all have a quest to save the race of flummels, which would be aided greatly if Op and Ed weren’t such monumental screw-ups. Dudes, maybe your species deserves to be Extinct.
It gets better. Right around the part where the film becomes Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, there’s interior betrayal and exterior betrayal and a cyclops. And God help you if you’ve lasted this long without dozing off. Personally, I had to watch Extinct in four different parts, always rewinding back to where my brain cut out.
Extinct isn’t a terrible film; it’s just one of those films that decided it there were no bad ideas. The problem? There are bad ideas. Lots of them. A movie like this definitely should have gotten more out of using Extinct creatures or exploring what truly might motivate an Extinct creature. And the film should definitely have given us a reason to root for Op and Ed other than “their species is destined for death.” As flummels don’t exist IRL and never have, how can we audience members learn to care about them? Caring for anything this film had to offer would have been a good start.
Two flummels named Op and Ed
Learned their species was soon to be dead
So they traveled through time
To revisit this crime
And then I fell asleep instead
Rated TV-Y7, 84 Minutes
Director: David Silverman, Raymond S. Persi
Writer: Joel H. Cohen, John Frink, Rob LaZebnik
Genre: Underestimating your audience
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The unparticular
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The sleepy
