Review of Annihilation (2018) by Jane M — 03 Mar 2018

I am in a state of cognitive dissonance about this film. From one side, it abandons all logic when it comes to 1) the decision-making for the organization, the resources and the execution of the mission by the government and the main characters and 2) the multiplicity of perspectives among people with common tendencies. From the other side, I haven't been so gripped, so thoughtful and so utterly horrified after watching a thriller in a long while! The visuals are mesmerizing and, yes, this film definitely expresses interesting ideas!

The problem is... nobody is 100% sure which are those ideas! Revisiting all the clues we were given, I am highly confident about where the writer wanted to arrive and... it seems to be exactly were I thought he arrived in the first place. Certainly, vagueness forces the viewers to contemplate more on what they just saw and people will have interesting conversations about this film. Nevertheless, I think if one or two things were stated more clearly, the wider audience would have walked out more satisfied with this film. Recently, many mediocre artsy movies with a lot of flare and nothing at the core have shamelessly overused the vagueness card. As an audience, I would find some philosophical unambiguity refreshing.

Overall, this film is haunting and seems to express some considerations about alternative intelligent life forms and our interaction with them, but is held back by some glaring mistakes that, upon editing, might have been avoided.