A Beautiful Mess

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2020)

This movie is incredibly frustrating.
It reminds me a lot of Prometheus in that it's beautiful and occasionally thought-provoking, but more often than not its worldbuilding is undercut by poor character dialog, vague plot devices, and foolishly bad decisions. And it doesn't have the same cheeky self-awareness as Prometheus.
Annihilation also suffers from a lack of genre definition. It dabbles in many sub-genres of sci-fi, but does very few of them well.
It really is a shame too. This one had the potential to be a true fantasy/sci-fi classic with its strong worldbuilding, fascinating visuals, and attention to style that is usually reserved for genre-titans.
Instead, it becomes a slightly-above-mediocre slog with wooden characters and poor pacing. It does come together a bit in the third act, but it's too little too late by that point.
6.2/10