A film suffering from an identity crisis

Rating: 7/10 (13 March 2018)

The screenplay by writer and director Alex Garland was seriously flawed in his noble attempt of a sci-fi film. For starters, it's been listed as a "Adventure, Drama, Fantasy" on IMDb and added "Action, Horror" on other sites, when it's entirely a sci-fi film... or really tried hard to be one.
Another obvious identity issue of this film was the score - one minute a suspenseful tone, the next a Western themed acoustic guitar, then some great sci-fi undertones. This film was all over the place trying to be an intellectual art piece, then a mind-expanding mystery, then a lethargically paced pretentious plot mess, then a cinematic masterpiece, then a Hollywood big-screen sci-fi.
No wonder the executive producers where bickering throughout the production and final cut including where/how to distribute this film.
The slowly paced almost 2 hour length really needed to be cut down to 90 mins max and much faster paced.
The lead actors were also rather bland, but I blame the director for failing to direct them properly and his slowly paced screenplay.
My initial rating from the start of this film was only a 4/10. I added 2 stars for some incredible visuals, and another 1 star for the last 20 mins of the film that actually felt like I was watching a great sci-fi.
Thus my final rating is a 7/10 which is a shame, as this film had the potential to easily be a 9 or 10/10, but instead flopped at the box office by suffering its identity crisis.