Unique cerebral sci-fi, left me feeling tepid afterwards despite mindblowing ending

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2019)

When Ex Machina came out in theaters, my mind was blown. I loved every aspect of it and it was one of the few movies that really got to me. It was a slow and cerebral sci-fi movie with a fantastic set, amazing performances, and really cool atmosphere.
So I was excited to see that Alex Garland was making his second directorial movie.
Annihilation is definitely a polarizing movie to most. Like Ex Machina it is a slow, plodding movie, it's meant to be a slow burn kind of sci-fi. The team takes their time moving through the shimmer world trying to figure out what this extraterrestrial thing is. For the most part it works, but there are stretches of it that really lack intrigue.
That's where this one really lacks in comparison to Ex Machina. Besides Portman's character, the rest of the team are just throwaway characters that you really just don't care about at all. Each of the three leads in Ex Machina were so well developed that you really did start to care for Eve and wanted Caleb to help her get away from her abusive creator. Though I get not ever character has to be developed as fully as a protagonist, but they need just a little bit for me to care as stuff starts happening to them in the shimmer.
The ending is still something awe inspiring and left me staring at the screen in a state of wonder until the credits rolled through and then some. Very few movies make be feel that honestly Ex Machina was probably the last one.
It's probably one that I need to see again without my preconceived notions of Ex Machina's greatness. It's just good to see that there are some studios willing to give people like Alex Garland a budget to make something experimental like this. They need to realized that not everyone always wants to see an Avengers type movie, that we do need to see stuff like Ex Machina, Arrival, Blade Runner and this movie too.