Could've been much better

Rating: 5/10 (15 March 2018)

The real objective behind Annihilation remains shrouded in mystery and it can simply be misrecognized as an action packed adventure and contact with possibly an otherworldly being. However upon viewing, it is made clear that it is a character study of one's nature of self-destruction. It is evident that the movie draws inspiration from the monumental classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, for its bold, idiosyncratic nature of storytelling and range of ambiguity from its segmental story-telling narrative. My main problems with the movie was how the main cast of the movie is assembled together. More emphasis is put on emotion and less on the scientific forefront. The characters are basically forced into a suicide mission and that is why the core narrative of the film feels forced. There is foreshadowing and "symbolism" that don't matter much to the context of the movie because the entire movie is seen upon from the perspective of Lena, a survivor of the expedition. In my opinion, it just makes the film unnecessarily broad and pseudo-ambiguous than it needs to be, and that can be associated with the ending. It comes to a halt where the consciousness of the mind has been jaded and where one's morality and the laws of physics itself are rendered as distorted. A cat and mouse game ensues where the initial interpretation is to perceive the blurring line between what's real and fake. Now this would've been much different if the movie took a more complete approach to the situation and not just focus one character's circumstances and the resolve to undertake the mission. Now I'm not saying all of it is bad, for the prism-like otherworldly entity that's being made contact with presents us with a fresh paradigm and it's definitely a film that is open to discussion. However my take-away from this is that the mastermind behind Ex Machina just couldn't hit the mark with this one.