Disappointed with ‘Annihilation’ on Netflix…

So, I just finished watching the sci-fi movie ‘Annihilation’ on Netflix, and I have to say I was underwhelmed and disappointed.

A March ’18 review on DigitalSpy ( http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/feature/a852095/netflix-annihilation-explained-ending-spoilers/ ) described it as “… one of the most intellectually challenging films of the year” – I don’t think so.

Here’s a quick summary of the so-called ‘plot’: Female protagnist ‘Lena’ just happens to be ex-Army and a biologist. When her Army husband ‘Kane’ reappears at their house after being missing-in-action for a year, we’re already quickly working out that he is not what he seems, a la ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ and its subsequent derivatives. Lena is kidnapped by ‘the government’ and taken to a base just outside of ‘the Shimmer’ – think a combination of Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’ and ‘Under the Dome’, with a side order of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s ‘Roadside Picnic’. Lena eventually enters ‘the Shimmer’ with an all-female team, making for ‘the lighthouse’ where it seems to orginate from – think Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ with a dose of Daniel Myrick’s 2008 movie ‘The Objective’.

Lena eventually discovers that an alien lifeform crashed into the lighthouse and is now creating some form of field (‘the Shimmer’) that ‘refracts all DNA’ (sigh), essentially creating new plant-animal/animal-plant hybrids (think ‘The Thing’). I won’t spoil the final ending… but it’s not much worth waiting for.

The main problem is that the film is SLOW and an obvious pastiche of many other (better-executed) films and novels. I’m afraid ‘Annihilation’ only gets 3/10 from me…