I absolutely loved this film. Stuck with me for days after watching.
His doppelgänger killed him
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Annihilation is a criminally underrated film that was let down by its marketing
- Thread starter Lunaray
- Start date
Such a good/creepy movie. I saw it twice in theaters with different groups of friends. Loved it. It's a head scratcher that's for sure.
Maybe not intentionally but in the process of the arrangement of the symbols, themes and the way it all plays out make it one of the best movies about mid level western occult advancement made so far. Definitely could be better but it's really quite good.
I always laugh at people who bring up Stalker. If people have a hard time watching this, then Stalker is going to be an impossible task. I love cerebral scifi but Stalker is very slow, veryyyyyy slow, and gives even less explanation.
I also didn't like Stalker as much because it was very religious, whereas Annihilation focused on things of a very human and relatable nature (ironically given the setting).
Bumping this because it explains it well.
He hits on a lot of the points of why this film is a fantastic scifi film. The uncertainty, the visuals, the imagination, the ideas, the respect for the characters!
I also didn't like Stalker as much because it was very religious, whereas Annihilation focused on things of a very human and relatable nature (ironically given the setting).
Bumping this because it explains it well.
He hits on a lot of the points of why this film is a fantastic scifi film. The uncertainty, the visuals, the imagination, the ideas, the respect for the characters!
I just finished ranking all 54 movies I saw last year and slotted Annihilation in at #4. I absolutely loved the movie though I totally understand why it bombed and why some people might not like it. Any hope for it being 2018's answer to Arrival drastically overestimates the general population's appetite for mutant, screaming bears.
A lot of people think the message and themes were too obvious and lacked sublety...
But of course, that's reddit.
"While it's a well made movie with good acting and direction, I think the concept is just flawed as a film.
Most people want more explanation. "
I don't see the relevance that reddit peoples opinion has on mine.
I mean do you disagree with me or something?
A bear that acquires the screams of people it has killed has nothing to do with scrambled DNA and the premise of the shimmering. It's creative horror but it's not related to the movie. That's an evil magic creature, but not a mutant from the shimmering.
The movie is adequately explained.
It is related. Everything is refracted, that's why Portman gets the Ourobouros tattoo from the other woman. That's why the shrubs form into the shape of a human. That's why the bear has a human skull coming out the side of it's head and has vocal cords that can mimic a voice. The shimmer is just mixing everything up, throwing shit together, and making something new.
Yes the movie explains the unexplainable quite well.
But what I said was that the premise of aliens being so different to us that we can't make sense or understand them is quite a boring concept for many.
People want to know about aliens in movies.
People don't enjoy being ignorant or incapable of understanding.
Yeah I'm still trying to figure out OP calling this movie neo-noir.
I hated it. It seemed like it set out to do only one thing, create weird imagery, and failed to create a compelling movie for that imagery to serve. The story, acting, characters, or the whole logic of the movie did nothing for me. All of it was only there to get you from one weird looking art piece to another. I would have preferred an art slideshow than this movie.
I have never been more disappointed in a movie after reading the book. I really regret reading the book then seeing the movie. I think I would have enjoyed it much more not expecting a semi slow burn/mystery that gets wackier and wackier.
It was pretty, but felt very hollow.
It was pretty, but felt very hollow.
OP
OP
I didn't say it was neo-noir, I said it had more in common with neo-noir than horror. Watch this scene:
The composition, the lighting, the surrealistic framing, the paranoia and alienation, the way the protagonists are trying to solve a larger mystery with the audience. It's not a crime drama but certainly contains a lot of the same thematic elements.
Maybe I should have said it's a surrealist mystery drama instead (since noir has a lot of trappings). It's certainly more that than horror.
I didn't like Annihilation. Nothing really happened except stuff and creative visuals; I'm saying this with completely understanding the "deeper meaning".
The film was a huge let down for me. Didn't care for any of it at all. And when I saw it the second time high, I went to sleep.
Yeah, it's fucking great. My only regret is waiting to see it in the movies so late that it was relegated to one of the tiny ass screens in my local theater which is state of the art otherwise.
The ending wasn't weird to me. It was straight forward. She got the Alien in her and is about to mate with her husband clone, laters humankind. I still don't get the "deeper" meaning of this film when is not that deep. Everything is pretty much straight forward. I found more material to work with looking for meanings in "Hold The Dark" than this movie.
She doesn't have the alien in her, she was changed from being inside Area X and that's one of the things that Area X did to her. Just like how the bear was fused with that one lady or how Tessa Thompson's character turned into a plant.
This movie is all about change and what it does to a person, from psychological trauma forcefully changing someone from who they were once to who they are now, to the more physical change that Area X is causing them.
I understood all of that from the movie. I didn't care that she cheated on her husband. It had no impact on the end game. The only person that made sense was the doctor. Because she didn't have anything to lose by going to Area X by having cancer. And Gina was flat, same with Tessa. Nothing in this movie made me care about anyone. No, build up with anyone. The only thing I enjoy was the last scene that looked like a Bjork video in the lighthouse, that's it. The film didn't do it for me. And I enjoy Hold The Dark more than this. Because of the characters. And that film is out of its mind.
I liked the psychedelic trippyness but I still only gave it a 7/10. I just expected something else.
Yep. The film was incredible. I loved everything about it. Sorry you didnt see it in the theater op, it really enhanced the experience.
The people complaining about the ending is so strange to me.
Hold The Dark was great, I liked it much better than this.
I saw Annihilation and Ex Machina in that order and came away thinking the latter was a hell of a lot better than the former. I have no appreciation for Annihilation, even if it does a few things I like. When dissected, it has things I enjoy, but when brought together the movie is joyless for me.
Not gonna lie, I loved the movie but thought the ending was fucking terrible. Turns out I'm just dumb. The ending is good. Great even. Thanks Era!
The last like 10 minutes of the movie do the rest of it in a way that makes me hate it. Also this movie is a hard sell to the general public (hard sci-fi in general is) so after the studio saw the writing on the wall they sold the rights to Netflix in all but 3 territories and called it a day.