Aesthetically Impressive, Though Its Smaller Parts Faulter Under The Weight of Its Heafty Design

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2018)

And here's another extremely hyped visual scifi in the wakes of Blade Runner 2049 and The Last Jedi. Alex Garland seems to be lord of the concepts within the realm of science fiction and Annihilation is probably his boldest one yet.
It's hard to say much about the plot without giving too much away. Natalie Portman--a biologist and army vet--shares a quietly deteriorating marriage with Oscar Isaac--who has been away from home without contact on a mysterious special forces mission. One day he suddenly returns, but something is off about him. Events lead Portman's character, along with four other female scientists, into the place her husband had gone--a rainbow vapor aura called "the shimmer" that has formed around a nature preserve. The plot unfolds from their in a way that should be experienced rather than told.
What Garland does best with the film is draw its visual concepts from it's scifi concepts, though sometime he tends to really on increasingly scientific implausibility to fuel his desired visuals. From a cinematographic perspective, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Stalker, and 2001 all come to mind.
What Garland ultimately fails at here is putting interesting characters who we actually care about through his rainbow jungle hell. Little time is spent on character development and the time that is boarders on soap opera drama steeped in bad American folk music. Some of the characters are implausible--particularly Jennifer Jason Lee's--and it is never made clear why they are their and why they appear to be in charge. I would say more time needed to be spent on the backstories of the supporting characters, but if their backstories were to be as mundane as Portman's Lena backstory, it might be better as is. In fact, all the characters appear to be perpetually mundane in this film: I don't recall a single lighthearted moments throughout it's two hour plus runtime.
Lastly, the music was really nothing to write home about and many of the songs chosen for the soundtrack are just annoying and don't fit with the rest of the film. Music is important to visual-centric films like this, and the score here never reaches the lofty dramatic heights of its visual counterpart.
Overall the film is interesting and enjoyable to look at and maybe just needed a little more character flare and a longer runtime to allow its inhabitants to breathe. Despite its stacking flaws I'd still recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys science fiction, fantasy, or masterful cinematography.