A visual masterpiece, but almost totally void of content.

Rating: 3/10 (28 July 2019)

Annihilation is beautiful, but unfortunately is almost completely without any meaningful plot or takeaway.
If you want a film so beautiful, that at times you forget that vast swathes of plot haven't been explained then Annihilation is for you.
I'm still not quite sure what the point of this film is because after watching, there seemed to be huge focus on the backstory of the main couple that has no payoff whatsoever and huge gaps in the explanation of what is actually happening.
Annihilation is very similar to Alien: Covenant in that if this was just a safari through this make-believe world it'd be a smash hit, but unfortunately it was supposed to be a film and if falters at the first hurdle of needing a good and enticing plot. In the same way that Alien: Covenant seems to make lazy plot decisions, Annihilation cleverly avoids that mistake, by making no plot decisions whatsoever and leaves you with a very pretty but fairly dull end product.
The big twist ending and the ham fisted ethical questions are laid on so thick that at points they're almost annoying, and some of the acting certainly towards the end is downright cringeworthy. Tessa Thompson's natural charisma is massively underused and her character almost has no point in being there.
All of the 'discoveries' made by the team have no lead up or progression, they just happen and have no pushback from anyone else giving you the impression that even the writers themselves didn't actually understand what they were writing. Strange events just happen and then are either forgotten or flogged to death to make a very flimsy point that in the end don't matter because the final 10 minutes is so unbelievably bad that you don't care.
Annihilation is like finding your favourite sweet in a Christmas selection box, and then realising it just an empty wrapper.