by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright March 2018
Annihilation is an example of a popular movie that is riddled with internal inconsistencies. It is replacing Prometheus as my prime example of this.
The basic story is that an alien comes to earth and sets up in a lighthouse on the coast and then protects itself with a steadily expanding "shimmer" barrier. Inside that shimmer it causes lots of mutations in the living organisms. The story is about a group of five women who go inside to see if they can solve the mystery. They are far from the first, and no one who has gone in ahead of them has returned... well, not in a formal way. The story centers on the psychologies and personalities of these women adventurers.
The inconsistencies are numerous and cover many aspects of this story. Here are a few examples.
o One of the first big inconsistencies is that all through the first act this place inside the shimmer is described as a place many people have gone in to explore, but none have come back from. OK... But then these women walk up to the shimmer, walk inside, and then don't bother to even check if they can walk out again. Based on what happens in the rest of the story, it looks as if they can. If that is the case, why hasn't the government organization investigating this place set up a base just inside the shimmer and then dispatched exploring parties from there?
o There are five members of this team that go in. Only one of them is trained in rifle shooting, but all five carry rifles. Even worse, none of them have rifle slings. They are carrying these for hours on end in their hands.
o This shimmer place is now miles across. In spite of the big size this party finds the remains of a specific previous party that never came out, the one with Lena's husband in it.
o The equipment these people bring with them works. That being the case, why didn't they bring in a truck as part of their equipment and just drive along the beach to the lighthouse? They would get there in an hour or two. Why are they instead taking days to walk through a swamp?
These are some examples of the stream of inconsistency that is constantly flowing through this story.
This movie may be about the psychology of these adventurers but I ended up doing so much head-scratching over the inconsistencies of their settings, actions and what they were experiencing that I soon didn't care about the personalities and psychologies. The story didn't make sense so any psychologies revealed would not make sense, either.
Sad, because Alex Garland, the director, did a much better job in his previous movie, Ex Machina. That one I enjoyed.
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