A Recipe for Annihilation.

Rating: 2/10 (16 April 2019)

Take four parts of Tarkovksy's Stalker, four parts of Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, two parts of H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour from Space and mix thoroughly, add a few pinches of Tarkovsky's Solaris to spice, and garnish with a dash of the psychedelic ending of Kubrick's 2001. Serve with a generous helping of "Hey we're all highly trained professionals, let's all panic and do really stupid things" from Ridley Scott's Prometheus and VOILA you have a highly unoriginal cinematic feast called Annihilation, that's guaranteed to give anyone who is familiar with the individual ingredients severe indigestion.
WTF? Why not just do a modern adaptation of Roadside Picnic rather than this plagiaristic "Homage?" I'm sure Tarkovsky purists would be mortified at the thought of Hollywood re-making Tarkovsky again (George Clooney in Solaris anyone? Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Stalker! Just yanking ya chain Tarkovsky fans, don't hate on me). There's no need to re-make Tarkovsky's Stalker as it was only very loosely based on Roadside Picnic which was a far more traditional science fiction tale than Tarkovsky's metaphysical, existential, philosophical exploration. According to Tarkovsky, the only things the film has in common with the source novella are the Stalker and the Zone (although the Stalker's wife and mutant daughter also feature in both).
The dangers posed by the temporal and physical anomalies in the Zone as depicted in Roadside Picnic are perfect fare for a Hollywood Sci-Fi/Horror adaptation: The Meat Grinder, the Hell Slime, the mutated flora and the post-apocalyptic qualities of the Zone and everyday life after the "Visitation" (it even briefly features an appearance by the living dead, though it is not a "Zombie" tale by any means). With a good screenwriter and a good director this could be an intelligent, thought-provoking, existentialist sci-fi-horror. Film-makers like David Cronenberg (is he even still directing?), or David Lynch come to mind. Based on Eraserhead, David Lynch would be a perfect fit for interpreting the post-industrial wasteland feel of the novella and the Tarkovsky film adaptation.
Anyway I digress, for anyone unfamiliar with the above ingredients, taking Annihilation as its own entity, it is still ultimately a very unsatisfying film. There are a few effective scares and eerie scenes with the mutations, but there are too many lapses in logic for my taste, and I just find Natalie Portman's acting bland and unconvincing. I don't think she is good enough to carry a film as the lead (I didn't mind Black Swan though I thought she was weak in the role). Also I don't think Alex Garland is that good a screenwriter, admittedly I enjoyed 28 Days Later and Dredd but I have been very underwhelmed by everything else he's done. As I understand this film is adapted from a series of novels, I assume the film-makers expected to produce sequels though it seems this was a box office bomb so that probably won't eventuate.