A sterile bag of missed opportunities

Rating: 3/10 (11 April 2018)

The world of the Shimmer could have been truly intruiging. Instead we get a forest with some rainbow coloured fog and a few mutated animals. The last part ramps up the weirdness but couldn't dampen my disappointment. It doesn't help that the special effects are surprisingly lackluster, taking you straight back to the middle of the 2000's, with the look and movement of the first digital animal that was introduced being so mediocre that it had me and my girlfriend laughing. On a few imaginative moments the movie reminds you of what it could've been, such as when the double deer appears or when the crew encounter the mutating flowers. It's those moments that the movie makes you want to see more. Instead we get more wooden dialogue from a set of predictable characters that don't evoke any sympathy. There's no soul here, a waste of my time.