Baffled by Good Reviews

Rating: 2/10 (24 November 2019)

When I'm home on a quiet Saturday night looking to be minimally entertained, I am easy to please. That said, I found this movie an excruciating bore, with almost no reasons to watch, save for a occasionally fanciful sci-fi exploration of mutation.
Annihilation checks all the idiot plot boxes. Send a team of women scientists into a realm where all others have disappeared! Hit the water after learning it's likely filled with mutated, vicious, monstrous gators! Ignore the warnings of a left behind video! Along with teams of investigators, logic flees once inside The Shimmer.
Okay, so maybe the visuals are thrilling? Nope to that, too. The floral fecundity of plant life gone wild looks as if it were decorated by a Michael's employee on steroids. Plastic and fake. The Shimmer itself is so vastly underwhelming, I thought More Was To Come. But More Was Not to Come.
Even the normally reliable Natalie Portman limited her acting range to a few variations of concerned, from vaguely furrowed brow to deeply furrowed brow. And oh, a gratuitous sex scene is thrown in, which always means bad writing. Stuck for narrative propulsion and intrigue? Hey, a sex scene! Yeah, that's it.
I don't like to be a cranky reviewer, because I honor the effort, and I know how hard it is to make a movie. Even a bad movie! But when marvels of sci-fi and excellent movie making exist, such as the sublime Arrival, it turns out that life is, indeed, too short for this piffle.