Review of Annihilation (2018) by Realmuthaf — 17 Mar 2018

After "Ex Machina" I expected more from director Alex Garland. Annihilation is pretentious, boring and ultimately style over substance.

The premise itself is intriguing - there is an expanding supernatural Zone out of which nobody has returned, except for Natalie Portman's husband, who appears to have no memory of prior events. Portman herself is a university professor who presumed her husband dead.

However, everything goes downhill really quick. First, literally on the 3rd minute of the movie we are shown a comet hitting a lighthouse, which immediately eliminates any mystery regarding the Zone's origins, as it's clearly extraterrestrial. Then we are led to believe that the Zone has been expanding for 3 years already. And what has the government organization overseeing it done in the meantime? Perhaps, send a large-scale military/scientific expedition with lots of gear and vehicles? Well no Sir! They have only sent a few small teams, none of which ever communicate or come back. So, by the movie's events, the current squad consists of 5 suicidal women who barely have any relevant skills for the mission. And while all are "scientists", the only person who tries to do some research is Portman, who at least takes biological samples along the way.

And how our 5 girl-scouts act once they enter the zone is unspeakable. They go in without any protective gear(!) and only M4s for weapons(!!), with only Portman having prior shooting experience(!!!), follow no plan and just wander around wasting time(!!!!) and leave no marks to be able to find their way back, as GPS and even compasses don't work(!!!!!).

Besides the sci-fi-ish premise, the movie also has some horror elements, so there are obligatory scenes of a team member being snatched from behind, and one team member losing their mind and acting hostile towards others. The latter scene looks very lame, by the way. There is some suspense in the film, but not enough of it.

While Annihilation has some pretty, albeit low-budget, imagery, the story feels like its writer just came up with some creepy moments but didn't care to stitch them together in any sensible way. There isn't any sense in Thessa Thompson's turning into some sort of discount Poison Ivy and disappearing. There isn't any sense or consistency in the CG-alien's actions. Why has it "entered" Jennifer Jason-Leigh and obliterated her? Why hasn't it done so with Portman, and played some copycat game instead? The alien core can be burned to the ground with a single phosphorus grenade, really? Why didn't Isaac's duplicate (whose reveal was as obvious and predictable as possible) also burn down, while all the other alien constructs were destroyed?

The answer to all those questions is because the writer did a sh***y job, that's why. Unfortunately, Annihilation is a disappointment.