Annihilation (2018) - What Did I Just (attempt to) Watch?
It seems that Rotten Tomatoes and I simply do not get along when it comes to science fiction or horror movies. You might have already guessed, based on the title of this article that I didn't care much for Annihilation. You might have also guessed, based on those first two sentences, that Annihilation is somewhat well-regarded in most movie review websites. Like Snowpiercer, Get Out, and Hereditary, I just couldn't quite get into what everyone really liked about Annihilation. Unlike those other movies, I couldn't even be bothered to finish it.
That's right. I disliked it so much and was so bored by it that I didn't finish it. Therefore, I didn't want to write a full review of it, but I still wanted to voice my disdain for a movie that seemed to be so well-regarded by horror fans. I made it about halfway and then my girlfriend was kind enough to read off the synopsis of what occurred in the remaining half, so I didn't bother wasting another unentertaining hour. So, with that little extra knowledge in mind, here's a half-review of Annihilation and why I didn't care for it.
Plot & Characters
A disheveled and confused Lena (Natalie Portman) is being interrogated by men in hazmat suits. She recounts the recent events involving an expedition she did with a team of other individuals. None of whom have made returned except for her. Her story conflicts with the details of the interrogators, but they listen anyway. The movie then jumps back into the past by a few months. Lena is a biology professor at a university who used to be in the army. Her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), has been on a secret military mission himself for a few years and has been missing the whole time. He suddenly returns home, but something is different about him. Before Lena has time to adjust to the fact that her husband is alive, she's sedated and brought to your typical super-secret scientific facility and learns that this area, dubbed "the shimmer," is slowly engulfing the world and that her husband is the only person to have gone in and come back.
Be aware: it takes about 25% of the movie's time to get to the point where Lena joins the ill-fated explorers and goes into the shimmer, aka where the mystery of the movie lives. Also be aware that this is about the time that we start learning about these other, soon-to-be-dead, characters. It would have been safe to assume that Natalie Portman's character would be the sole survivor due to her being the biggest star. However, that little scene at the beginning of the movie that keeps appearing to remind us that Lena is recounting the story and that our assumptions are all but confirmed, make these disposable characters even less interesting. In the first Alien vs Predator movie, or even just the last two Alien movies (Prometheus and Covenant), you could guess which characters would live the longest, but they at least didn't flat out tell you at the beginning of the movie and remove any tension.
As for Lena, she's not all that interesting either. We spend a lot of time seeing Lena mope and cry about her husband she believed to be dead. Depression is certainly a character trait that can be used to add dimension to a character, but it is not one that requires a significant focus on the obvious sides of the emotion. The only time where it feels like things pick up the pace and set the stage for something special to happen with Lena is when Kane shows back up suddenly, but then he's immediately abducted and she's forced to interact with a psychologist who can't seem to open her mouth when she talks. By the time we meet these other characters, I was already pretty over Lena and wondering what the point was in meeting these other women.
Once the soldiers/scientists are finally in the shimmer, it doesn't take long for the plot to reveal what's happening. It also doesn't take long for the dialogue to show that this attempt at a sci-fi horror film was not written by someone who knows how to make compelling horror characters. The other women on this expedition are all boring, flat, or archetypal. The one who reveals the most about her past is the first to disappear. Almost all of the people who should be military-trained—at least I'm guessing because I don't know who any of them are or why they're there—start freaking out or behave in ways that horror movie civilians would. In Aliens, the percentage of soldiers who freaked out about the Xenomorphs was much smaller in comparison to the other soldiers who kept their cool. In a world that is supposed to be unbelievable with how the creatures and plants in this mysterious place are changing and different, I would like a set of characters that is believable enough to captivate my interest.
Lastly, here's a bit of spoilery stuff that I have to criticize. So if my complaining hasn't shaken your resolve to see Annihilation, skip this and go watch it for yourself. Once the characters are in the shimmer, it takes very little time for you to piece together what is happening in it. Lena points out the various flora and fauna and how they appear to have changed and morphed, like the species have cross bred in impossible ways, just from being in that place. Well, what do you suppose would happen to a person or several people in this place? Probably the same thing, right? Before the movie even gets to the part where it would explain the fact that the characters are genetically changing, I had turned it off. I didn't want to have to listen to one character yell and scream about how "that can't be" while the other tries to explain what the audience already knows. According to the synopsis, the movie gets a bit 2001-ish by the end with a forced antagonistic enemy and a plot twist that you probably saw coming a mile away if you were willing to watch the rest of it.
Pacing
Let's just finish this half-review with the worst thing about Annihilation. This movie is painfully slow and dull. I like slow-burn films. I like slow-burn horror films. I even think Hereditary's slower pace was a strength for that movie in comparison to this. However, unlike Hereditary and other good slow-burn films, there just isn't enough there to keep you interested as the movie takes its time getting to the point. We'll get to these issues in a second, but the characters, dialogue, and plot do not provide any real mystery or interest to make the story move any faster. I already felt like I knew more than the characters did after 30 minutes and just wanted them to catch up with the rest of the class.
I get the impression that the Annihilation filmmakers wanted this movie to go slowly, but didn't realize what it takes to make a good slow-burn film. Other slow movies that I've seen that use the slow pace well have compelling or relatable characters. They have some sort of mystery or character-drama to pull you into what's happening that makes you want to sit there quietly and see how things will play out. Annihilation lacks in these ways because the characters do very little to win you over, the dialogue doesn't help, and the mystery of the movie, which is a big part, ends up being relatively unsurprising and vague. These factors, combined with the sluggish pace of the film make it seem like there was really no substance there to begin with and the filmmakers just wanted to stretch everything out to a two-hour run-time.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
I am not trying to be a contrarian, but it seems my track-record for enjoying movies to the same degree as everyone else on Rotten Tomatoes is only continuing to decline with Annihilation. The movie is dull, slow, and lacks any real personality. The film tries to make up for it with colorful renderings of their weird world inside the shimmer and vibrant glow-filters on the cameras, but it takes more than bright colors and disposable characters to make a decent 2-hour horror film worth finishing.
