Review of Annihilation (2018) by Renovatia — 14 Apr 2018

I saw this movie yesterday. The idea - the narrative - is good. The implementation is not. First of all the acting isn't spectacular or anything; Fairly basic. Natalie Portman does an OK job, but Jennifer Jason Leigh is so so.

What you need to know is that besides the narrative, again which is quite good, it's one of those modern male-unfriendly movies. It's about an alien crash site. Male soldiers were sent first, but they failed their mission. So now they send scientists. All of them women. But what happens next is that they wear militarized outfits and brought military combat rifles with them...

The movie refuses to be smart enough so they could send both scientists and soldiers. No sir, these days men, especially white men are too much for Hollywood. Needless to say the added value of a female-only "science" team with M16's was never shown, but that's how it works these days. In fact, at one point they were surprised one of them could actually wield a rifle (Portman was former Marine).

So the bad is the feminized picture, the often stupid dialogue and the overall bland acting. The good contains some action and a good (but Hollywood style superficial) story with a few nifty interesting details. But not interesting or nifty enough for you to see the movie again. Once is enough and I'm not sure anyone should pay for it.

I wouldn't recommend you to give it a go because of the anti-male undertone. It fits Portman's overly liberal political activism by the way. Also, it doesn't strike me as a main screen movie. It's more like a TV production to me. Besides all of the previously mentioned subjects, you need to know that this movie is a "slow burner". But it's not slow because it's so genius. Despite the interesting narrative, again, it's thinly implemented, so not much is said or done. The movie wanted to compensate with interesting shots instead, but I dispute the level of "interesting", so to speak.

Many slow burners aren't genius at all, despite the pretentiousness. Again, understand that this is a typical Hollywood movie: the main script was probably written in a day. Then a few more details are added or altered throughout the shoot. And that's it.

Too bad. A very good idea with an interesting message ruined by a poor implementation on a wide scale, as well as due to a politicized undertone. You can throw money at it for some special effects (no better than amateur Adobe After-Effects hobbyists on YouTube) and pay money to stars like Portman and Jennifer, but it didn't help.