I really really wanted to like Annihilation, who would not be keen to see the next largely praised sci-fi, mystery, adventure, thriller? As a big fan of all those genres, I am quite disappointed.

While the environments are very colourful, I cannot help but feel that this was such a missed opportunity to create a vibrant, fantastical atmosphere inside this unknown world. Instead, for a large amount of time you would not be able to tell the difference between reality or the time spent in the 'Shimmer.' Furthermore, the entire setup for the plot felt extremely clunky and rushed, often taking away from the needed immersement of the genre.

The narrative does not really flow either. A lot of noticeable cuts are made within the same sequence, or over different sequences that skip an uncomfortable amount of time, or seem like there has been dialogue or actions left out between characters. This ultimately made the drama between the cast feel underdeveloped or out of the blue, it also did not help that they all felt expendable due to not being fleshed out.

The overall tone is generally maintained though, the haunting soundtrack built to a nice climax over the last 15 minutes of the film to tie it up. Although on the ending, it left too many questions open and nothing felt resolved by the credits. Not counting the arguably pointless subplots, there were lots of issues surrounding the main plot that were glossed over to evidently keep the story moving quickly.