A Good Example of Style Over Substance?

Rating: 6/10 (23 March 2019)

Annihilation is a 2018 science-fiction film with a splash of horror thrown in. The film is based on the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy of the same name. The film is directed by Alex Garland and features Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson and Oscar Isaac to name a few.

The plot is a very intriguing one from the get go as it is about a biologist that served in the army that decides to sign up for a secretive expedition into the strange Area X where the laws of nature that we are familiar with don't apply. All in all, I was very impressed with the story and the plot all together and it flowed relatively well. There were some pacing issues with parts of the plot that I think could have sorted out with an extra ten or fifteen minutes added.

An example of where I would have liked the scene to go on for a little longer to flesh out the characters motivations at that particular time was the infamous bear scene where the bear comes into the house where they are staying. I wish the suspense was built a little more before we seen the bear was in the house, maybe from some screams from outside or something of the sorts. The first act also could have been cleaned up with inconsistent pacing issues throughout it. Despite these issues the plot is still intriguing and well crafted.

The characters are were the movie falls of the rails. The characters weren't entirely memorable or very interesting as they were very one dimensional besides for Natalie Portman's character who they attempted to make relatable and to make us have an emotional connection with the character but I just didn't. Don't get me wrong, there was some connections you could make with the character but because of the writing of the character there wasn't much of a connection with the main character like I wanted and if the character died, I don't think that I would have felt much, maybe a bit disappointed but also would have felt cheated at such a clichÃ©. Despite this, she was the best written character in the movie and was interesting to an extent.

The other characters were very poorly written as well, relying too heavily on exposition from the characters to explain them rather through visually showing us a lot of stuff. There was some visual storytelling to flesh out the characters but was only used after the exposition of the characters was already done. The things that they said a character was I didn't really feel they were or it was just done in a very questionable way. For example, in John Wick it is stated that, in summary, John Wick is not a character that you want to mess with (that is an understatement) and we can clearly see that in his character. But we don't get much, in this movie, to reinforce what the exposition told us, in an effective manner anyway.

When one of the characters said another of the characters was a cutter in the movie to Natalie Portman's character I was thinking, 'Really? They are going to tell us that instead of show us?'. We do see the cuts on her arm before that character dies but it didn't need that exposition or leave the exposition very vague. For example, Natalie Portman's character could have seen her wrists when her long sleeve shirt moved up a little bit. She seen that she was looking and pulls her sleeve down, giving her a look and then avoiding eye contact. She then gets up and walks off to see if another of the characters needs help. This would have been more effective character development rather than the exposition, showing us a lot about the character without telling us.

The motivations are also pretty poorly fleshed out as well. The man character (Portman) has her motivations fleshed out well but the others it is done very poorly, which instantly makes you not have an emotional investment in the characters.

At this point, you may be reading and wondering why I am not using the characters names, rather the actors name or just calling them 'a character' (or a variant of that). Well, that is because their names didn't stick with me. They said them a few times throughout the movie but they just never really stuck, because of the placement of the names (which was commonly filled with exposition, which is disappointing). The characters are all female as well, which I know a lot of people might have been mad about, but it wasn't pushing it and the characters could have been gender swapped and it wouldn't have made a difference so that critique I don't feel is valid in this case. The main character despite the poor writing was actually not a strong female character but a just a strong but flawed character, which is what many movies lack nowadays.

I would argue that the plot is story based rather than character based so this doesn't destroy the entire experience for me.

The visuals of this movie are very well done and it is a visually 'pretty' movie. This is my first movie I have seen that Alex Garland has directed and I have to say, I am a fan of his visuals. They are a stand out of the movie and the scenery is one of the most memorable things from this movie. The visuals themselves are utilized in a way that makes the worldbuilding very unique and visual (which is sad I can't say the same about all of this movie). Of course, the worldbuilding isn't just all visual and it does have some exposition to it, which was essential in creating this narrative.

The CGI is quite impressive in a lot of the cases such as the bear and the crocodile are both expertly done. However, in some cases for example the world around the characters is quite obviously green screen in some cases and the CGI structures seem a little odd and out of place, which they are supposed to be, but they could have made them blend into the environment a little better than what they were. The ending CGI with the alien was well done and I understand why the CGI was a little odd in this part, which, I would assume is to make the alien look more alien but the CGI is not out of this world. Not just the alien in that scene looks rubbery, the construct the alien forms from is very odd as well. By the looks of it, most of this movie will not age well and in about ten years' time the movie's CGI will be very inconsistent (more than what it looks like now).

The CGI of the gore is very well done and reminded me of Mortal Kombat a lot. The graphic nature and well-rendered gore make it look as if it was hyper-real Mortal Kombat. Great examples of good CGI gore and violence is when the bear bites the jaw of one of the characters and the tongue lolls around or the structure of the deceased soldiers' skeletons looks quite cool and nice (in a disturbing sort of way). The spot that stands out the most is the footage the expedition group we follow finds where the soldiers cut open a fellow soldier and his intestines are moving inside of his stomach.

The acting was also at times strange. At times it was very good and impressive such as the scenes with Oscar Isaac and Natalie Portman had very good acting. The chemistry between the two played out well on the screen and her reactions when she found her husbands recordings of when he was inside Area X were well acted. Most of the acting was very dull and not much emotion seemed charged behind the delivery of their lines, there was still emotion there just not as much as other lines and made some scenes fall flat. In other scenes the acting is incredible such as in the ending scene with the alien. Natalie Portman felt like she was happy to be doing the movie in parts and put her all in it and sometimes it felt like she just wanted to get the film done. Oscar Isaac delivered a very good performance, one that I would imagine be a stand out in his career despite his relatively small role in the film.

A lot of criticism in this film comes from the alien scene at the end which attempts to mimic her. A lot of people see this as quite confusing, which loses them, but I disagree with this a lot. This scene is one of the most powerful in the movie with it representing the character fighting against herself and her inner demons, which I thought was a relatively easy concept to grasp, but I guess not. With minimal dialogue throughout this whole scene it showed that Alex Garland is a very skilled visual story teller, so I don't know why he didn't use this skill throughout the entire film.

All in all, this film is highly entertaining and it had me gripped almost all the way through it, with only small times where I got bored (mostly in the first act). I recommend watching this film if you are a fan of sci-fi horror films but just be warned that it does favor style over substance with a good balance only in some parts throughout the film. With all things considered this film is a 6/10. Not bad but not particular great.