Engaging Visuals with Poor Execution.

Rating: 3/10 (27 May 2018)

I didn't read the book prior and I had no knowledge of the film even being made. Without any presuppositions about the movie at all, I found myself pretty encapsulated at the start. It was an interesting premise with unique visuals, which was enhanced by Portman's acting.
Unfortunately, the glaring plot-holes started to become more noticeable when they stepped into the shimmer. Things surrounding the military, research crews, and other science fiction take a lot of prior knowledge to set the scene appropriately. Apparently the writers didn't think much of that through and it becomes overwhelmingly salient as the film drones on.
The more I continued to watch, the more I became bored with the premise. It almost came off as pseudo-intellectual. Painting a picture of profundity through continually confusing the viewer with empty plot points, but showing some shiny imagery to encapsulate them once more.
The unique visuals of the film are only the thing that carries it, but there becomes a point when even that can't band-aid the outrageous holes within the story, characters, and writing style. Near the end, I was almost laughing from how brazenly silly the narrative turned out to be.
As far as science-fiction goes, Annihilation has a couple of interesting developments that are best left on paper. In execution, it becomes a mess of quasi-intellectual, abstruse nonsense and fails to deliver anything new, engaging, or spectacular to the genre.