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@The Critical Drinker Please review the cult classic 'Withnail & I' (1987) - one of the best drinking films of all time (and it's much, much more than that).
Not gonna lie, I loved the monster with the human voice. I think it's a pretty cool concept, a creature that kills an animal, copies its last calls for help and uses it to lure others who want to help.
Kinda like an SCP I’ve read about. The thing that bothers me is that the different strange mutations of all the organisms seem too random and arbitrary. It’s like it the writing doesn’t really expect more from its audience. That some cool ideas, visuals, and music is enough and the writing doesn’t have to do much at all to satisfy the viewer. Everything else will pick up the slack.
I'm glad you mentioned the gender thing. When they mentioned they were sending in an all-female team, I thought, "Oh brother, here we go," but they didn't make it into a huge thing and I appreciated that.
Kinda cringe that he said they made rational, logical decisions and were all Experts at their Fields when this is clearly not the case; to a laughable degree. Them being send in there and what they're doing in there is kinda the only thing one can really analyse about this s-it-movie, so people did: And the result is that its idiotic. All of it. Mainly their 'strategic decisions' that Drinker just complimented.
@@loturzelrestaurant Yeah, but at that point they'd seen dozens of teams of highly trained soldiers go into 'the shitter' and never come back. Going in is basically a suicide mission and they know it. So the only kinds of people who would go in are volunteers who basically don't give a fuck about self-preservation on a deep level and are basically marching off to their death to satisfy some deep burning curiosity. They're not really being sent in so much as they're being allowed to go in. In fact it's pretty much established in the beginning that they're all depressed as fuck and we learn throughout the movie that Natalie Portperson is also driven by a heavy dose of guilt as well. Of course once they meet the alligator it starts to bring up their fight or flight instincts, snapping them back to reality a little bit. As the movie progresses from there, it becomes apparent that they really didn't have their minds in the right place from the get-go. Even if they're moderately competent (albeit not so much as soldiers and survivalists) they clearly weren't mentally prepared for a real fight. Like a suicidal person looking down from the rooftop and suddenly remembering their fear of heights. Not to mention, 'the shitter' is actively messing with their heads as well, messing with their sense of time, and mixing up their DNA, form and even consciousness with the plants and animals around them. In fact, the doppleganger that we see at the end is not actually making a copy of Natalie Portperson at all. It's actively mixing the both of them together until they're both equal parts. She doesn't remember shit because both she and the doppleganger were scrambled 50/50. Same thing for her husband. It's kind of an interesting take on "what if a life form found another way to combine DNA and multiply without sexual reproduction?" except that the only ones to make real contact with it were depressed, suicidal people and weird animals.
@@Krooksbane I did see it, mate. I realized before any TH-camr made a video about it, that it's hilariously bad. Why? Well, simple: I'm not a simpleton, who doesnt realize 10000 Plot Holes. I just do.
Yes, driven by madness, fear, loneliness and having a terrified mind thrown in it. It wasn't evil in intent, it was trying to find escape, making it that much more terrifying
I actually was into this movie. It has a an interesting sci-fi premise, and a good atmosphere. It leaves a lot of questions, but that's mostly intentional and I don't have a problem with it.
After seeing the !movie! Multiple times and read the book once (don't recommend the book) I can tell you this was one of the best cosmic horror !movies I've ever seen, and those are really hard to nail.
i fucking loved it, and still love it. The story was weird, and i liked that, i enjoyed the ambiguity of the ending, and i especially loved the chilling alien soundtrack. gives me the same feeling as an air raid siren. I love it more as an art piece than a movie, i guess? Either way, I love it.
it's like the producers looked at each other and said "female character turns into a hunk of wood" and they all snap their fingers at the same time and say "Tessa Thompson"
Yes! The first person perspective when the necrobear screams just inches from the camera in the house scene... wow! That was actually pretty darn terrifying in the theater. Other than that Annihilation was overall a big bore.
This single scene by itself was really, really good. No jump scares, just build up and tension. A lot of these scenes could've worked as short films but it all just seemed smashed into one movie very poorly.
Your review gave me low expectations and honestly I loved it. It just takes you on this trippy ride and doesn't spoon-feed you answers. It's creepy, visually interesting and is better than what you see in Netflix and Amazon nowadays. No politics, misandry or other nonsense you see in a lot of modern movies.
I mean, it doesn't really have time for politics or misandry - there are no men present, and the women won't shut up for five minutes. If I were you, I'd go and watch Contact if you haven't already - a fantastic and genuinely intelligent film that also doesn't explain too much, but actually has more to say - or perhaps even delve into the inspiration for this story, Stalker (based in turn on "Roadside Picnic") - the film that is, not the game... although if you're a gamer, definitely play Stalker (would recommend the Gamma mod pack).
@@clanwaddell5628 If you never saw event Horizon you should also give it à try. But you probably already saw it. It's my favourite sci-fi/horror movie. It's quite unsettling.
@BLAIR M Schirmer Nothing faltering about this review. He's just comparing how this film was made against how a lot of other movies are structured nowadays. Very clever breakdown of the movies major plot points and scenes. No I think CD is spot on here.
@BLAIR M Schirmer Agree with your assessment of the movie. I dunno if CD is faltering, but I do think there's much lower-hanging fruit out there for him to shit on than this movie.
I always understood the effect of the shimmer to be pretty much the effect of something explorers would find in outer space. Something that follows rules we can't even grasp, but that triggers particular behaviors in people due to our own animalistic nature. Basically, cosmic horror. It worked great in that regard.
Yep, it's really difficult to think of life outside the carbon based lifeforms we are and know, but this movie seemed to do it really well. it was completely unfathomable
That, the fungus-like skeleton growth, the human-shaped bushes when they first walk into the abandoned town were all beautiful and creepy. Too bad the rest was boring as hell.
That was about the only scene that was cool imo, having watched Sci-Fi for about 30 years this movie was just a big MEH for me, didn't even remember it until Drinker posted this review ^_^
I love the drinker’s videos and normally find his assessment to be right on the money. This is a rare instance where I feel he missed the mark. Admittedly my viewpoint is skewed as well since I have the benefit of viewing this as a long time fan of the Weird fiction genre. So many elements of the book and movie draw direct comparisons to Lovecraft’s Weird fiction masterpiece, “The Color Out Of Space.” In many ways this movie mimics the writing style of Weird fiction and Lovecraft and his contemporaries. For instance The Drinker notes a, “paper thin plot.” In a lot of weird fiction the plot is less important than the concepts and the atmosphere. So in a way he is correct but, that works for what they are trying to accomplish. Also it seems he may have missed the cancer analogy that the shimmer is causing everything it touches to mutate and gain characteristics of other things touched by the shimmer. For instance the gator and shark since the shimmer lands near the ocean but has extended onto the land. The movie also does not spoil itself as the Natalie Portman that leaves is not the one that entered as the shimmer has, “infected.” her as it does to everything that enters. Also drinker is right on the money with the self destruction motif at the end that was the reading I had as well; although I wouldn’t say it was a reach. The biggest issue I think is a misunderstanding of what the movie is trying to capture; which in my opinion is an encounter with something that is truly alien in every way. What if alien life isn’t just an entity what if it takes the form of a place? Of course this is my own reading of the movie and it is colored by my prior knowledge but, I agree that should not be needed to enjoy a good movie. But, for a Weird fiction fan; seeing a movie with this level of polish and craftsmanship being unafraid to enter into the truly ambiguous territory of Weird fiction was awesome.
The difficulty in understanding what they are trying to accomplish may be why so few Lovecraftian horror films are commercially successful. However, it does seem a bit backwards to me that Drinker loved “Event Horizon” but didn’t like this.
The book explains a couple of your points: the team is all-female because they've tried previous teams that were all-male, mixed gender, etc. so it's kind of a trial-and-error thing. The crocodile is mutated in that way because animals from the sea have traveled into the rivers within the Shimmer. As some others have also said, I think the bear is actually a really, really good movie monster.
Thats right. There are several novels about the Shimmer , and packing them into just one movie generates many questions. But sending in many teams is just dumb AF. What if the shimmer just kills EVERY human😆😆 would they send even their kids into? Dont know. Or just some drones on wheels...... Or just bombarding the shimmer with Nuclear warheads until it lets go.
@@skullyjones8234 It is implied in the novels that nothing worked to contain the Shimmer and it gradually expands until it will cover the entire planet so no they could not just bomb it. They can't send in drones because modern technology does not work inside it. I don't remember what exactly happens to modern things but I think it was something like inside the time works different so they rust/break faster and get overgrown, basically become unusable. Something like that. Since nothing worked to stop the Expansion and they can't get any information at all out of it they send it human teams by trial and error (because some actually return however they have "changed"). Obviously this was done to kind of explain the suicide missions otherwise it would be a boring story.
I just wanna know why they didnt take the beach route to get to the lighthouse in the first place. They never said they needed to go the same route as others or that they needed to recover data from the old HQ. The beach is obviously safer and impossible to get lost.
Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, but then I'd love to be a tree when I grow up. I could retire to the country and just hang out and photosynthesize. Be nice to still get wood way into my old age.
@@lurker993 Good point. I thought the same thing. Perhaps they tried and sharks with legs came out of the water and attacked teams who tried it first? lol. I always thought it was a missed opportunity to not show us how the shimmer effected ocean going life. I must admit though, this one of the only Drinker videos I disagree with. I absolutely loved the film
Half Stalker & Half Colour Out Of Space Directed by M. Night. The word Shimmer also means: to reflect a wavering sometimes distorted light. So I believe it's a good name that fits the themes of the film. When different things happen to different people I think it's accounting for their thoughts/brain waves mixing with the unstable nature of the Shimmer, and there is a line in the film that alludes to their different mental reactions the team has to being in the "Zone". My major issues I had with the film are with the narrative set up, wooden acting and missed opportunities. The film doesn't take their initial journey into the "Zone" with any seriousness (could be a budget constraint). The world is facing an alien extinction event and they just yeet some science LARPers in with what appears to be no training or protective equipment. Was there no security expert before Portperson YOLOed into a secret government mission? The reality of the stakes are waifer thin. The performances feel off and wooden. Especially the black dude she is cheating with, no one communicates like that. I agree that it appears like a choice to add gravitas to the film, but unlike a Tarkovsky the film struggles to blur the line between poetry and reality. I also believe that the deft hand of poetry in film(Tarkovsky) is built throughout the entire film and not just squeezing in surreal and stiff acting. And lastly the film never plays with the unaccountable time in anyway. They wake up having missed 3 days at the start and then the film feels quite linear after. Huge missed opportunity to play with their mental states and time lost to help justify their unstable behaviour towards the end. Decent Sci Fi that's a 7/10. I agree with others opinions on the theme being heavily linked to human trauma/cancer and self destruction. Could be a 9/10 under a different hand that attempeted to further peel back the deeper meanings and inject some life into the characters. Would love to see what a Tarkovsky or an early Riddly Scott would do with the same source material. Bear was rad and the logic of the "Zone" literally falls apart when it's destroyed but Portperson and Star Wars beta still live. Peace
That was a very macho movie, and bleak. Usually he rips on movies, so it would have to go to his The Drinker Recommends pile. I liked it, myself. But I like most anything with that actor, I guess.
Mixed feelings about that one, it did a really good job of setting atmosphere and tone. The execution of completing the story is what turned a lot of people off to it. Especially when you put spoilers of the movie in your trailer...
I remember saying the exact same thing about Dakota Fanning, i watched the Alienist series and although her acting is good, she kinda lost some charisma
The book the movie is based on is really good, and gradually reveals most of its secrets. There's also a poetry inside it that is completely absent from the film, bar some of the visuals. I think an adaptation would work much better as a series. A quick summary of the story would be something like this: an alien crashed into the planet 50 years ago, housed inside some kind of "prism". This prism breaks light, and shifts/morphs whatever it comes into contact with, mutating everything inside the shimmer. The shimmer expands as the range (intensity?) of the prism grows. The shiver not only influences whatever is inside, but also tries to copy and morph into it, so it can become more powerful by and increase its range by spreading ever more rapidly. And humanity can't seem to stop this infestation, losing who or whatever comes into contact with it. Except for the Port-person (I see what you did there) character, who is actually the first mutated entity created out of a human that is both self-aware and able to sustain itself outside of the shimmer without falling apart (unlike her former husband, who was merely a shell pretenting to be the man by the time he arrived at her doorstep). As a self-conscious being that is both alien and human, Portperson realizes that she needs to go back inside to communicate with the alien, so she can figure out a way to stop it from destroying all it comes into contact with. To find some sort of solution to its predicament, being stuck on this planet by itself, with no way out, and no real way to communicate. But I guess the film never got there. Which is a shame really. So read the books instead!
That is what is on the surface. Here is what it's really about in a nutshell… Annihilation is like a modern war movie. The journey (the pain) you experience changes you in such a way that can never really go home again in that you will never see anyone (especially friends or family) or anything the same way again because of the changes the pain has made in you. The doppelgänger at the end represents her pain which she defeats and ultimately get to go home. She goes home, but the pain the journey itself has caused has changed her and her husband forever.
@@phadrus4435 I was simply describing the plot, not the thematic core. Something I found the film conveys quite poorly, by being opaque to a fault. Both the book and the film did remind me a lot of Apocalypse Now (and The Heart of Darkness on which it is based) , which explores similar themes: a journey to a world that changes one forever, to travel beyond the point of no return and humanity, to lose oneself and come out a different person. In a way, I like your description of the film better than the film itself. Which unfortunately falls short of the book it is based on, which I love dearly.
Well put. I loved the books, reading them was a bit little walking in a fog but by the end most of it cleared out and you can see the overall picture. There were some "scenes" that I went back and read a few times (something I almost never do when reading), like for example the first event at the pub (third book). Damn, that was some intense writing.
The book was a chore, and what little I read of the second was worse. Plot points (contrivances) being explained more thoroughly doesn't actually help all that much. Less loose ends, sure, but like another commenter said, it is effectively an anthology that got merged. CT himself points it out, through the _Wouldn't It Be Cool_ section of the video. The writing, on the a technical level, was incredibly dry. None of the characters felt like people, just vehicles for an idea, and predestined to end badly. The Black Guy Always Dies First sort of deal, except it's everyone and they're all made of cardboard. It's not possible to get invested into a character (let alone many) if you know there is mind-fuckery going on, since all actions become suspect, all motives become esoteric. It's like _Redshirts_ and _House of Leaves_ had a baby, but not in a good way.
@@axelord4ever I'm sorry to hear that. I read all three back to back, so I can't say i share your perspective. Instead I found them challenging and philosophical, an exploration of identity, of man vs nature, as what was mentioned above. There was a beauty to this savage new reality, this fusion of local and foreign. The second book was very interesting because it showed the complete opposite of the first book: a stale, rigid world of bureaucracy, hiding as many secrets as the first book. The third felt like the fusion of both worlds, the familiar trying to come to terms with the unknown, well aware both sides are ill equiped to ever truly understand each other, but having to find a way to coexist regardless.
I like how you couldn't even give anything against the bear monster. Great shit on that one. Really though, I heard nothing of this movie until it was playing, at which point I thought, "Hey, this is the Color out of Space!" And from then on, I was just concerned with how it's a pretty sweet take on a Lovecraft story, and really nails the cosmic horror parts. It's not a terrific movie, but it's creepy and weird, and that's fine with me.
Thank goodness I’m not one of the few who’s always believed she’s stunk in everything she’s been in. Lol. I mean, I am a natural Portperson hater but whatever 🤷🏻♀️🤣👍
Portperson was okay in V for Vendetta when she only had to be a Doctor Who wooden exposition/companion. Her starting in a picture automatically lowers the bar on interesting.
How she got an Oscar is beyond me. But, also, have you noticed that she is just like every other Oscar winner....every movie she's been in since is terrible. Okay, there's a couple of exceptions (Denzel Washington, Hillary Swank).
@Cinematic Passages nah he is pretty ok. Check out Mission Impossible: Fallout. Its easy to think he is a bad actor when in so many unfortunately bad movies.
@@questworldiangreenknight7455 Skin walkers are native American folklore. They are usually shamans that have the ability to shapeshift. They are told to be evil and mark their victims. Marked one is troubled by this entity and can cause death too.
Allow me to shed some light on this situation. Skinwalkers are human beings who turn into wolves or bears and back again through sorcery. Basically a case of lycanthropy. The Wendigo is a little more interesting, it's a beast that is created by human beings indulging in cannibalism, and is cursed to always be hungry. It has traits of both a human and a deer, and has gnawed off the skin around it's own face in a bid to satisfy its own hungriness. The beast in this film is closer to a wendigo than a skin walker, since it has exposed skull and shares the wendigo's ability to speak with a human voice. The only similarity it has to a skinwalker is the shape of a bear.
It is visual poetry. The entire film is an emotional metaphor. Fans were misled by marketing that sold the film as being sci-fi horror. It is about grief, relationships, and self-destruction.
@@jarrensmith1060yeah I'm surprised he didn't like the movie. Maybe bc it needed the audience to come up with theories as to explain supposed plot holes? This move really intrigued me
It makes me wonder what Gina’s relationship is with Michelle! Gina Rodriguez is the actress who The Drinker called discount Michelle Rodriguez, and I though that was quite humorous. By the way, did some research, and turns out she is not. th-cam.com/video/MlkfdU9xQe0/w-d-xo.html&app=desktop
I think I would have to agree (sadly) I mean there have been some decent ones here & there..but I honestly can't say there have been true stand out films lately..hollywood nowadays fall way short of any type of Real entertainment..it's just seems HollyWierd is get'n weirder & weirder 🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️💨😐😐😐
yes and the shark croc thing can be easily explained simce the shimmer was on the coastline and crocs are known to wander into sea of they are that close...plus all the rest wasnt that high brow but i absolutely loved it...its well paced and really unsettling
I agree. I think it's okay for people to have differing opinions. I rented this movie from Redbox twice because I liked it so much. I don't even know if I'd call it a "good movie". I just enjoyed the experience.
@@joelsefur666 really? I loved the ideas of the first one, but book two was filler, literally nothing happened. I couldn't even get through the first half of book three it was so dumb.
Yep, I think you hit the nail on the head. It was like a collection of really awesome short movies, but when connected together made more of a mess than a masterpiece. I also appreciate how you acknowledged that the movie didn't push any femanazi agenda. Something that shouldn't need to be praised, but that is the world we live in.
“Natalie Portman cheats on her husband, then he dies. But then he comes back and she can tell it’s not really him. So she feels bad, wants to find out what happened to the real husband, and goes into an alien swamp. Then she comes out, doesn’t tell anyone that her husband is an alien, and decides the world has to die because she got some pipe on the side.” - me, whenever people ask about this movie
And the book this drivel is based on even makes less sense. Can you imagine that? All this book is leaving you with after reading the last words is this nasty feeling of just having been scammed.
She didn’t know it was not her husband. She only knew he was acting strangely. She definitely didn’t know he was an alien. What movie did you guys watch?
@@ironmonkey1512 Ah, you see, that's because the writers are trying to be "clever" and their own script proves them to be dumb. They try to make you believe they don't exactly know where the centre of the Shitter is, despite making it very clear at the start of the movie that the Shitter was actually pretty small to begin with and then started expanding, which means they can pretty accurately pinpoint where the meteor crashed.
The Drinker: "These are cool ideas, but unfortunately they have to be supported by a strong, intelligent story that draws you in, keeps you invested and delivers a satisfying payoff that ties everything together". Any Hollywood producer: "I don't know the meaning of 11 of these words".
Basically, Metaphors and Symbolism by themselves don't make a great experience. There has to be a relatable, substantial story that has a strong foundation to build off of, otherwise you're just left with pointless, pretentious fluff that doesn't really go anywhere.
How wrong I was. I saw the trailers and was excited to see it. What a farce. I hear people saying how "good" it was? And like you, I think they must have watched a different movie.. Sir,, you NAILED this! It tries to be smart, cutting edge, and thought provoking.. And fails on all fronts.
The alligator / shark hybrid and the other weird mutations (e.g. bushes shaped like people) are kind of explained as being due to the Shimmer having a distortion effect on DNA, where the DNA of any biological entities in its area can be randomly shuffled. So you get the bushes picking up the "body shape" DNA from humans, and alligators with shark teeth. The Shimmer is on a coastline, so it picked up DNA from a normal shark in the ocean to combine with the alligator. It's a really interesting idea for an "alien" because it's not some dudes in a flying saucer that we can try to blow up, instead it is an incomprehensible phenomenon, something that we couldn't even begin to figure out how it works or how to combat it. It's not even clear if the Shimmer is intelligent, or just a strange natural occurrence that happens rarely in our universe. But yeah, they didn't really do a lot with the idea, the movie is all questions and no answers. I think the story of when the asteroid first landed, how it effected the people who lived in the area, and the attempts to research and understand the Shimmer would have been a lot more interesting.
So the lovecraft story, colour out of space. It's very much a similar and darker film/story, I wouldn't be surprised if they were straight up inspired by it...
But the story is very similar like you suggest at the end. The asteroid lands, a team of scientists try to make researches about this area and find hints about what has happened and is happening there. We saw how the Shimmer messed with the body and mind of the people who are living in this area. We saw how it affected the five scientists and we got hints that other people endured a similar or worse fate
I absolutely like watching Drinker's takes on movies but sometimes I believe Drinker either doesn't watch the movies or doesn't pay attention. The movie gives all the answers to his questions.
"The movie gives all the answers to his questions." It doesn't. I watched the movie, and I didn't understand shit. It's one of the two movies where I got so lost, I couldn't understand what's the point of the whole thing (the other was Southland Tales).
The book was TRIPPY, and it was always going to present a huge challenge to adapt for the screen. They obviously struggled lol. On the subject of the all women team, they actually explained it in the book. They've tried all male military teams nearly every time before. The males tend to go crazier faster and tend to kill other team members etc.
I really appreciate that actually, it’s something that is touched based on in an anime called Claymore, where the male subjects go crazy while they female tend to control it better
@@abark The whole point was that she had to grow up fast in her life, so she was thinking of herself as a young adult, and acted like one. That was a solid performance. The next thing I saw her in was Star Wars Episode 1, where she was kind of not so great, and that was in the 90s. I can't think of a good movie now besides possibly Star Wars Episode 1 which really wasn't, but it's a masterpiece compared to Disney's crap they've been putting out in my opinion. I totally agree with you. :) Now, it seems she just does woke nonsense and complains when men don't watch her movies.
@@heintz256 The high ranking ones do as they can pick their movies, but even that has it's extent at the fine line between synonyms and script rewrites.
Give him a chance to shine in his acting career. People likes to make fun of "I have the high ground" to Ewan and he still success till this days and he seems like he's having fun with it.
Annihilation follows the modern movie-making formula. Begin with interesting ideas and thought provoking questions that persuade you to invest. Then languish on with a series of disjointed events, without bothering to address any of the initial ideas and offering no resolution. Masterpiece!
Once again, Jar Jar Abrams is to blame. He and Damon "LOST" Lindeloff created an entire generation of psuedo-intellectual "mystery box"-B.S.-laden scifi films that all think they're Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", when in reality not a single one of them is fit to wash the pit stains from Dave Bowman's exercise shirts.
This is why, I think, we latch onto Christopher Nolan so much. He seems to be one of the very few writer-directors who doesn't forget the central theme/narrative while adding on these overwhelming ideas. Except for Tennet, unfortunately. That was his first let-down for me. But Inception is fantastic for maintaining its core narrative of overcoming guilt and regret, while throwing all this mind-boggling science fiction in there.
Thank you! that's what I was thinking. Roadside Picnic has great world building, mystery and good characters. This is just a Hollywood girl power flick. Go watch Stalker, million times better.
LOVE this movie….loved the score, the visuals, the ambiguity of the outcome, all of it. Just brilliant cosmic horror and I’m so happy all the top comments agree 🙌
That bear scene tho... hands down the most frightning movie scene I've seen in the last decade. It was as disturbing as it was horrifying. Also I love the cosmic horror element in the movie, the entire idea that we're face-to-face with an unexplainable force that we just cannot comprehend. The more we try to examine it, the more questions it leaves us. Surrounding it all is a deep sense of dread, and sense that things are not right, things are dangerous, and we are not meant to interact with it. I really wish the movie could've capture those elements better, but it wasn't a bad film, not an amazing one either though.
The movie was partially successful at portraying this, but it was ultimately not very satisfying. I think it was a rewrite or two away from being really amazing, though. The movie was really slow and ponderous, but it wasn't tedious or boring. Well, until the climax. That was pretty tedious.
@@mattjones7226 Yeah the books do a much better job at the cosmic horror elements. There are just somethings you can't translate from a book to a movie.
Actually watched this just yesterday. My biggest gripe was the characters. They're paper thin and the big reveal in the end (about Poe) was all but wasted, because my first thought after seeing him was "well, either he was told to act like an amnesiac and blew it, or that's some kind of clone". I was also 50/50 on who is going to be the "traitor" (there's always one) and since my picks were cass or anya (the likeable or the annoying one), it was kinda obvious not too far into the movie, too. The ending was just meh. I think I might like the books more.
Oh yeah, the setting also gave me strong vibes from Stalker (obviously) and the novel The Artificial Kid, in which there's is a "substance", which causes large areas of a planet to break down whatever it touches and grow into something else.
Saw an interview of the director. He actually had a desire in this movie that was pretty good. Not sure if he hit the mark. But his intent was good. He just wanted to create the idea of an alien that was actually alien. Nothing human like. The end went away from that concept but
I heard he wrote the screenplay based on memories from the books years after he read them. The bear isn’t in the book trilogy, but from another book by the author.
The alien at the end looks just like those early 1990s CG demo stick figures back when CG was barely emerging and then was very limited computing capacity.
Really these cheap "people" won't pay good science fiction writers to adapt their works which are better than how they handle the ideas by far. This movie seems like the scriptwriter took the general ideas from "Roadside Picnic" and combined it with "Invasion of The Body Snatchers" and perhaps they saw Tarkovsky's "Stalker" or "Solaris" and thought they could make something as good. I wish these people would just pony up and get writers like Bear or Baxter to collaborate on an adaptation. Drinker when are you going to write a sciffy script?
I agree, this movie really shows how to make a female-centric movie without alienating the male audience. As for the story, I think I see where they were going : the age-old trope of the alien lifeform that mimics everything and might eventually replace us all. That would explain why Nathalie Portbeing killed it with fire. But she couldn't be sure that fire would kill it, so that's a bit dumb. Ultimately I think they wanted to create an alien that was truly alien... and that sounds like a good idea until you realize that if you make something too alien the audience will have zero clue as to what it does and why. And thus the movie becomes a random sequence of random cool shots. It was serviceable as an afternoon movie while I was coding a deep neural network, but that's about it. The cinematography was on point.
I actually think that this film is pretty good. It's a new take on the cosmic horror genre and does a lot of things right. The soundtrack is particularly terrifying.
Same. It's cosmic horror, and it's a nice take on a genre that's slowly starting to get back into mainstream viewing. Is it perfect? No. Are the books better? Considering you have a trilogy's worth to build character, exposition, internal monologue and deep dive into the unknown without the cost of a shorter film run or difficulty coming across to the audience, definitely. I respect CD's points against it, and I do share some of his opinions about certain directorial changes, but just because he doesn't like it doesn't mean I have to hate a movie I enjoyed.
@@cainyourkids "but just because he doesn't like it doesn't mean I have to hate a movie I enjoyed" why would you even think that? You are totally entitled of your opinions. Even if you like CD it does not mean you have to put him on an altar and believe to or agree with everything he says and thinks. Seriously man, you should have a higher considetation of yourself lol
@@dhdhejehuwbs843 Ridiculous nonsense used as shelter for mediocrity. There are tons of technically objective ways to gauge artworks. Just as an example, if your story is character-driven is not a satire, and your characters are all cliche stereotypes, your work is objectively bad. If you're trying to make an abstract painting and you don't know how to balance colors and just splash paint randomly onto your canvas, your painting is objectively shit. If you don't have any decent ideas and just copies Mozart, your music is objectively shit, because it's just repetitive, and will certainly fail to hit Mozart quality. How do I know that? Because it's been tried thousands of times since Mozart's time with the same result over and over again. So, stop trying to justify small-minded mediocrity with "all art is subjective and just a matter of opinion". It's NOT. Go educate yourself theoretically by reading good art theory books.
@@mariadocarmosobreira8323 right, but if you've got something that objectively ticks all those boxes doesn't necessarily mean you're going to like it. Otherwise everyone would just be liking the exact same things - and also, all "educated" art critics would agree with each other, and clearly they don't. So there is am element of subjectivity involved. I do agree, though, that this postmodernist "everything is equally good" crap is nonsense. I think we can all agree that the crap you see in any postmodern art gallery is shit.
@The Monster Under Your Bed Forget the monster. I liked this movie because of the unconventional antagonist who clearly had a motive that left both the characters and the audience confused as to what that was.
@@boboboy8189 Just beaucse you dont think its a good movie does not make it a bad movie. Just becuase you dont resonate with it does not mean others dont.
Read a discussion about creepy parts in movies and the bear scene was brought up, that's what got me to watch the movie. It was a creepy scene, but not really that great. Didn't make up for the rest of the movie. Probably would have liked the scene more if I hadn't heard the hype before watching.
The story is basically a mutant merge of Roadside Picnic and Solaris - everything original has been taken from these two novels but without the deep philosophy of neither of them.
Yeah I must agree - this movie is pointless, even the plot is pointless, as in: it didn't made me feel any kind of emotion and to be honest I don't even remember a single thing from it after they enter the zone, except for some characters and that stupid mutant boar or whatever that was.
I love how this movie says everything within the Zone from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. can have its DNA spliced with everything else, and then shows trees made out of GLASS.....
They were guessing. It's actually good writing. It wasn't a pseudo fourth wall break to explain the fictional science to the audience. Like what you get in a Godzilla movie. It was characters guessing and getting it completely wrong, because the real answers were even more distorted.
I want to add some perspective to this movie. Hopefully this comes across as friendly and informative. To start, I've read the book *Annihilation* and the two sequels that form the Southern Reach trilogy, and had the good fortune to attend a talk by the author, Jeff Vandermeer, that took place at my university soon after the movie was released. [Side note: if anyone is interested, I can try and put up a link to an edited recording of that talk (probably just taking out the Q&A as it's short and not that great), let me know.] Having read the books and attended this talk, I will say that there are some things to consider when thinking about this movie: - To his credit, Jeff Vandermeer is a talented creative force, and has developed many interesting ideas and stories in his books. But, he also has a very, how to put it kindly, "different" writing style. It alternates between graceful and easy to get lost in, to being very tedious, meandering and unfocused. Reading his books--or at-least *these* books--is often more of an exercise in breaking down his style rather than directly engaging in the story, if that makes sense. To admit some of my own bias, I can say that for me, the books after the first one were very much a chore to get through at times, because of this. - Based on what he said in the talk I attended, you can say with decent accuracy that Vandermeer often takes a postmodern approach to writing (in the literary sense, not the political/philosophical sense). Because of this, many of his words, characters and plot elements come from a very surreal, dadaist creative bedrock. He deliberates lets many things form and grow amorphously in a sort-of unconscious stream. This sometimes works in his favor, but many times doesn't. As to why this movie specifically is such chaotic and bewildering creation, that's because of two additional major reasons in addition to the previous ones laid out above: + Vandermeer says unambiguously in his talk that the book *Annihilation* came into existence because he had gone through a very intensive dental surgery wherein he was given high doses of painkillers for several days afterwards during his recovery. This led him to have, as he puts it, "a weird dream one night." From this dream, he extracted elements that he then fused with his experiences hiking through the wilderness in North Florida to create the Annihilation story. So there you have it, the basis of the book is rooted in a drugged-out hallucinatory fever dream, that was then filtered through his writing style. + Then, when the movie was to be adapted, the director Alex Garland specifically said that he wanted to do an adaptation that was, and I quote, "like a dream of the book." So the movie is literally a dreamlike interpretation of... a story that was an interpretation of a dream. You can see how this would make for a movie that could possibly work as a surrealist sci-fi cosmic horror-show, but only if executed in a very specific way. Personally, I both like and dislike the movie for different reasons, but hopefully this helped some people look at the final product with a bit more to go on. And a few quick points: - Vandermeer is a very likable guy, though he is a much better at speaking about and discussing his creative ideas in a educational/didactic way, rather than actually writing them out in novels, in my view. - Vandermeer has made clear that many notions that people got from the movie--like that the all-women expedition was meant to be a Social Justice move, or interpreting the movie as an allegory for cancer and disease--were not how he personally viewed it. In fact, the book makes clear that choice of all women was because the Southern Reach organization has been trying for decades to understand Area X and what "it" is doing to the area that it has taken over, but their expeditions keep ending with disturbing, disastrous results. Thus, the scientists involved are trying to "alter the variables" by tweaking the personnel makeup of each new mission, eventually seeing of an all-women expedition. - Finally, while Vandermeer says he likes the movie well enough on its own terms, he will push for more creative involvement and control on his own part for any future adaptation of his material. That's all I've got. If anyone wants to hear that talk, let me know.
"I guess the vague implication here is that human nature is the true enemy, and its our own self-destructive tendencies that make the Shitter so dangerous for us." - the exact theme perfectly explored in the far superior film Annihilation ripped off: Stalker.
Exactly. It's a poor man's Stalker... but since Stalker is an amazing movie and the random ideas mashed together in Annihilation were good... I guess I like that movie! Not an amazing movie but still worth the watch IMO.
So, I actually had the opposite experience watching the movie: I walked into thinking it was really dumb and pretentious and it wasn't until the third act that I was genuinely surprised that it had something to say. Also, a few of your critiques seem to completely misunderstand the movie: For example, 5:07 is explained by the fact that literally everyone is going insane and their minds are being warped by The Shimmer. 7:50 Essentially everything in The Shimmer is combining and mutating so it increases character flaws and insecurities in people AND combines the DNA randomly with things around you. So, for the plants, the one lady was putting plants into her skin to turn herself into a plant, and with the bear it combined with its victims eating humans made it more human. 8:26 That's not reaching. That's literally the theme of the movie. The movie is about how humans have self-destructive tendencies and will choose the worst possible choices out of curiosity. All of the main characters have some form of self-destruction whether it be cancer, alcoholism, suicidal tendencies, infidelity, or whatever it may be, and all went on a suicide mission out of curiosity. The ending establishes that the Shimmer is merely combining with people and mimicking their traits but in an imperfect way, so when it is handed a flare, it kills itself out of curiosity and intrigue. The acting, I will agree, isn't very strong. A lot of people are very understated in their acting and don't seem to understand what is going on. My overall opinion of this movie is that it is 2/3 filler and build-up for a sequence the director really wanted to make and the last 1/3 of the film is worth it. The first 2/3 of the film has fairly generic cinematography and rather uninteresting dialogue that looks like it was made rather quickly, but then the last third of the movie knocks it out of the park.
What I asked myself the whole time: why didn‘t they send tanks like in Stalker? (I know that it failed horribly in Stalker but it would be the logical thing to do for the military)
@@Zwaolin How do you know tanks would work? Modern tanks are full of technology that might not work in the Zone, and while T-34-85 would do, it doesn't have the protection good enough for the crew, thus the crew would be affected by the Zone.
@@Zwaolin They only sent underequipped scientists because it wasn't a "real" expedition, it was just the site director's last ditch attempt at entering the anomaly before dying of cancer. I don't think she ever expected to return alive, she just wanted some answers before dying. They mentioned that all the previous expeditions were military in nature, and the only camera footage we see from the previous expedition shows a larger group of soldiers, who probably brought more equipment with them (they're insane by the time we see them, so we get no info about their original mission). You usually don't send tanks into a heavily overgrown and unknown forest terrain without battalion-size support including engineers to clear the way, not to mention fuel concerns for a multi-day expedition (0.6 MPG for the M1 Abrams, for example). Plus you might want to work out why things can't return before sacrificing that many resources since it could be futile, for example if physics within the zone was incompatible with life. With the additional secrecy concerns it becomes even harder to assign large forces to the problem. Portman's husband in the movie is special forces so it's easy to cover up his disappearance, but it's harder to magically hide the reassignment and subsequent loss of so much manpower and hardware.
That's clearly one of these cases in which if you asked them "so what thought exactly?", they'd be stomped. I bet all of them who used that word to describe the movie couldn't even tell you what the movie is actually about.
The movie does have interesting concepts But the thing is... the execution is not very good. People will say "Explaining the horror makes the movie feel boring" but when you have dozens of characters asking what the hell is inside The Zone, it is kinda hard to not facepalm and being told to swallow it.
I thought this movie was one of the best sci-fi thrillers made in years. As for the silly things they say it could be explained away by dissorientation. There cells and their mind were being scrambled and fragmented by the shimmer it they were slowly going nuts so if anything they said made sense that wouldn't make sense get it
You missed some horribly stupid things: They already sent in several expeditions into the shimmer. And when her husband returns they put him into quarantine. HOWEVER: when the team goes into the shimmer they are equipped like going to a hiking tour. When me and some buddies watched this movie some months ago, we started yelling "hazard suit" because it was so obvious. Also: they know it affects communication. Well, if you already sent in several teams and they got lost, how about trying to get a landline in there? They could do it in WW2, so why not in this movie? Also: They know their target is at the beach... did nobody ever try to get there by ship?! This movie is full of absurdities and stupidity!
Nah, its just you thats stupid. Your the type that doesnt buy a delicious crunchy apple cause it has a tiny blemish on it....Peter perfect, are ya...the movie's a classic, idiot...
@@karenmcdonald4263 1) I'm allergic to apples so I wouldn't even buy shiny ones. 2) I can appreciate bad movies, even the ones with ridiculous setups. But those setups are consitent in themselves. This movie is figuratively a polished turd. It's a trash movie with a Hollywood polish.
A rare miss for the Drinker. Anyone who didn't get the movie should read Roadside Picnic. It doesn't really have anything to do with it but it might help appreciate this particular kind of sci-fi story.
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Do review video on The Expanse Series please
You should also really look at posting your content on Rumble as well. We all know the next ScrewTube purge is just around the corner, so exploring your options is always a good idea.
@The Critical Drinker Please review the cult classic 'Withnail & I' (1987) - one of the best drinking films of all time (and it's much, much more than that).
Do Anime and Tokusatsu Reviews, Drinker. Do them now and Hurry Up
wtf your a drunk and a writer?
Not gonna lie, I loved the monster with the human voice. I think it's a pretty cool concept, a creature that kills an animal, copies its last calls for help and uses it to lure others who want to help.
Boy do I have a thing for you
@@abutterynoodle9347 What would that be??
Kinda like an SCP I’ve read about.
The thing that bothers me is that the different strange mutations of all the organisms seem too random and arbitrary. It’s like it the writing doesn’t really expect more from its audience. That some cool ideas, visuals, and music is enough and the writing doesn’t have to do much at all to satisfy the viewer. Everything else will pick up the slack.
@@Vaillle random AND arbitrary? you mean like when somethinig is too wet AND dry?
Ever seen Predator ?
I'm glad you mentioned the gender thing. When they mentioned they were sending in an all-female team, I thought, "Oh brother, here we go," but they didn't make it into a huge thing and I appreciated that.
Kinda cringe that he said they made rational, logical decisions and were all Experts at their Fields when this is clearly not the case; to a laughable degree. Them being send in there and what they're doing in there is kinda the only thing one can really analyse about this s-it-movie, so people did: And the result is that its idiotic. All of it. Mainly their 'strategic decisions' that Drinker just complimented.
@@loturzelrestaurant Yeah, but at that point they'd seen dozens of teams of highly trained soldiers go into 'the shitter' and never come back. Going in is basically a suicide mission and they know it. So the only kinds of people who would go in are volunteers who basically don't give a fuck about self-preservation on a deep level and are basically marching off to their death to satisfy some deep burning curiosity. They're not really being sent in so much as they're being allowed to go in. In fact it's pretty much established in the beginning that they're all depressed as fuck and we learn throughout the movie that Natalie Portperson is also driven by a heavy dose of guilt as well. Of course once they meet the alligator it starts to bring up their fight or flight instincts, snapping them back to reality a little bit. As the movie progresses from there, it becomes apparent that they really didn't have their minds in the right place from the get-go. Even if they're moderately competent (albeit not so much as soldiers and survivalists) they clearly weren't mentally prepared for a real fight. Like a suicidal person looking down from the rooftop and suddenly remembering their fear of heights. Not to mention, 'the shitter' is actively messing with their heads as well, messing with their sense of time, and mixing up their DNA, form and even consciousness with the plants and animals around them. In fact, the doppleganger that we see at the end is not actually making a copy of Natalie Portperson at all. It's actively mixing the both of them together until they're both equal parts. She doesn't remember shit because both she and the doppleganger were scrambled 50/50. Same thing for her husband. It's kind of an interesting take on "what if a life form found another way to combine DNA and multiply without sexual reproduction?" except that the only ones to make real contact with it were depressed, suicidal people and weird animals.
@@pirojfmifhghek566 Sorry,
but thats no Excuse for what we see.
@@loturzelrestaurant You seem determined to not like this film
@@Krooksbane I did see it, mate. I realized before any TH-camr made a video about it, that it's hilariously bad. Why? Well, simple: I'm not a simpleton, who doesnt realize 10000 Plot Holes. I just do.
Alligators and bull sharks share the same waters around Florida Bay and the Everglades
"I dont know" is perfect as a new drinker recurring clip
Fuck
(Or is that Mauler)
"Don't know" is more canonical though.
Agreed, he nerds to run with it.
I often use Drinker's accent when I reply to my wife if she's asking me rhetorical questions.
Needs to be used at least as much as "No way!"
The bear was the stand out performer of this movie. Genuinely terrifying and a great monster creation.
That bear when he said help me gave me goosebumps
@@umbrellaguy6934 same. Hairs on the back of my neck just thinking about that noise. I hope the bear gets it's own sequel.
@Steve bearbumps*
To true
Yes! That's why i cant hate this movie.....and all other cool things.
Regardless, that screaming undead bear was a masterclass in creature creation. Actually terrifying.
Yes, driven by madness, fear, loneliness and having a terrified mind thrown in it. It wasn't evil in intent, it was trying to find escape, making it that much more terrifying
Nightmare fuel for a long time for me.😨
I shit my pants at that bit
Best part of the movie. Hands down
the thing is better
I actually was into this movie. It has a an interesting sci-fi premise, and a good atmosphere. It leaves a lot of questions, but that's mostly intentional and I don't have a problem with it.
After seeing the !movie! Multiple times and read the book once (don't recommend the book) I can tell you this was one of the best cosmic horror !movies I've ever seen, and those are really hard to nail.
@@OsirisMawn If this is the peak of sci-fi horror then no wonder that genre is dead.
Sorry but not sorry. Not everyone can pull a David Lynch. And I think it's been proven with this film.
i fucking loved it, and still love it. The story was weird, and i liked that, i enjoyed the ambiguity of the ending, and i especially loved the chilling alien soundtrack. gives me the same feeling as an air raid siren. I love it more as an art piece than a movie, i guess? Either way, I love it.
You guys must like shit movies.
So Tessa Thompson literally turns into a plank of wood. Wow, she was born for that role.
She kinda already was. She's never been a great actor.
Nice burn.
Love your user name
it's like the producers looked at each other and said "female character turns into a hunk of wood" and they all snap their fingers at the same time and say "Tessa Thompson"
@@Acme1970 All those snaps and not a single one was a Thanos snap to save the universe???
The Bear scene was actually genuinely eerie and well done. I wish the whole movie felt like that one scene and I woulda loved it
Yes! The first person perspective when the necrobear screams just inches from the camera in the house scene... wow! That was actually pretty darn terrifying in the theater. Other than that Annihilation was overall a big bore.
This single scene by itself was really, really good. No jump scares, just build up and tension. A lot of these scenes could've worked as short films but it all just seemed smashed into one movie very poorly.
@@adamgray1753 i'd argue their musical score was great also, especially for the final act.
I genuinely enjoyed the ending scence with the morphing alien thing too
If only anything else was eerie or scary. Instead it’s just confusing and needlessly disjointed
"Natalie Portperson"
Well people we did it, sexism is no more
this is the kind of thing you'd hear on late night with david letterperson!!
😈
We? Good job on taking credit for things you have nothing to do with ;)
Boys? How dare you!?
"Not if I have anything to say about it. AND I DO! I'm going to say the M-word!"
We're all just part of the huperson race.
When the world needed him most, he drank...
sorry im waiting for rags too pop in an disagree for the hell of it
The hero we deserve and need.
And nobody saw it coming...4 more times.
Brilliant! 👍
Altruism and beaning Realist is what C.D. does best.
Your review gave me low expectations and honestly I loved it. It just takes you on this trippy ride and doesn't spoon-feed you answers. It's creepy, visually interesting and is better than what you see in Netflix and Amazon nowadays. No politics, misandry or other nonsense you see in a lot of modern movies.
I mean, it doesn't really have time for politics or misandry - there are no men present, and the women won't shut up for five minutes. If I were you, I'd go and watch Contact if you haven't already - a fantastic and genuinely intelligent film that also doesn't explain too much, but actually has more to say - or perhaps even delve into the inspiration for this story, Stalker (based in turn on "Roadside Picnic") - the film that is, not the game... although if you're a gamer, definitely play Stalker (would recommend the Gamma mod pack).
@@NicholasBrakespear I liked Contact and am a fan of Carl Sagan. I enjoyed my watch of Annihilation. I had low expectations, maybe that helped
@@clanwaddell5628 If you never saw event Horizon you should also give it à try. But you probably already saw it. It's my favourite sci-fi/horror movie. It's quite unsettling.
@@xminusone1 event horizon is one of my favorite movies
“Natalie Portperson”
This is why I love Critical Drinker
So tolerant and inclusive sham wow
That's because she's one of the peoplekind.
LMAO
Should also have been Tessa TomsChild.
IT'S "MAN". PORT "MAN".
"The stage is now set for whatever passes for the finale."
- The Critical Drinker
@BLAIR M Schirmer Nothing faltering about this review. He's just comparing how this film was made against how a lot of other movies are structured nowadays. Very clever breakdown of the movies major plot points and scenes. No I think CD is spot on here.
@BLAIR M Schirmer Agree with your assessment of the movie. I dunno if CD is faltering, but I do think there's much lower-hanging fruit out there for him to shit on than this movie.
No, he’s spot on as usual.
You being triggered is amusing though
@@colinsmith1412 A very even-handed and nuanced appraisal of my comment. Keep the hits coming!
That bear that screams like it's victim is probably one of the scariest things I've ever seen, though.
Yeah...that scene was pretty much the only redeeming bit from that entire trash fire.
I stopped watching the video when I read that comment :))))))))))))))))))))
Wish me a peaceful night
It's an Alzabo. Look it up
Trees overcoming people and transforming them into trees...
Mark Wahlberg: internal screaming
It's pretty much just SCP-939
I always understood the effect of the shimmer to be pretty much the effect of something explorers would find in outer space.
Something that follows rules we can't even grasp, but that triggers particular behaviors in people due to our own animalistic nature.
Basically, cosmic horror. It worked great in that regard.
Yep, it's really difficult to think of life outside the carbon based lifeforms we are and know, but this movie seemed to do it really well. it was completely unfathomable
It's just the Color out of Space
Yep great movie, on many levels. Good book too
Btw it’s called the shiter
The shitiest Shiter.
“Natalie Portperson” 😆🤣
Pure gold! hahah
Natalie Portmanteau
"It's Portma'am!"
Natalie Porter Potty
I really think Natalie Portperson should make a movie with Hugh Jackperson.
Man, you could actually really feel the cringe and pain in the Drinker's groan when he went.....
"and.....UGH.....Tessa Thompson"😂😂😂
She's 💩
Perfect clip of her looking a bit smug when he did, too.
"Person, you could actually really feel the cringe and pain in the Drinker's groan when he/she/ze went....."
Fixed it for you, you bigot.
Ugh how sexist. It’s Tessa Thompchild to you!
We all feel that same level of cringe and pain.
It had some decently disconcerting images. The bear screaming with thar woman's voice was very off-putting.
That, the fungus-like skeleton growth, the human-shaped bushes when they first walk into the abandoned town were all beautiful and creepy. Too bad the rest was boring as hell.
Yeah that scene was disturbing
Just another spectacle with no substance.
That's the only scene I remember 🤣🍿
That was about the only scene that was cool imo, having watched Sci-Fi for about 30 years this movie was just a big MEH for me, didn't even remember it until Drinker posted this review ^_^
I love the drinker’s videos and normally find his assessment to be right on the money. This is a rare instance where I feel he missed the mark. Admittedly my viewpoint is skewed as well since I have the benefit of viewing this as a long time fan of the Weird fiction genre. So many elements of the book and movie draw direct comparisons to Lovecraft’s Weird fiction masterpiece, “The Color Out Of Space.” In many ways this movie mimics the writing style of Weird fiction and Lovecraft and his contemporaries. For instance The Drinker notes a, “paper thin plot.” In a lot of weird fiction the plot is less important than the concepts and the atmosphere. So in a way he is correct but, that works for what they are trying to accomplish. Also it seems he may have missed the cancer analogy that the shimmer is causing everything it touches to mutate and gain characteristics of other things touched by the shimmer. For instance the gator and shark since the shimmer lands near the ocean but has extended onto the land. The movie also does not spoil itself as the Natalie Portman that leaves is not the one that entered as the shimmer has, “infected.” her as it does to everything that enters. Also drinker is right on the money with the self destruction motif at the end that was the reading I had as well; although I wouldn’t say it was a reach. The biggest issue I think is a misunderstanding of what the movie is trying to capture; which in my opinion is an encounter with something that is truly alien in every way. What if alien life isn’t just an entity what if it takes the form of a place? Of course this is my own reading of the movie and it is colored by my prior knowledge but, I agree that should not be needed to enjoy a good movie. But, for a Weird fiction fan; seeing a movie with this level of polish and craftsmanship being unafraid to enter into the truly ambiguous territory of Weird fiction was awesome.
I find more things common with Solaris and Roadside Picnic. But yes, he just didn't understand the point
Theme over substance is never good for a movie.
Color out of space is an amazing movie. Everything that happened was explained. Maybe thats the difference?
@@geteavnroc2250not everything needs to be explained , that's y annihilation is a great cosmic horror . It leaves you thinking
The difficulty in understanding what they are trying to accomplish may be why so few Lovecraftian horror films are commercially successful. However, it does seem a bit backwards to me that Drinker loved “Event Horizon” but didn’t like this.
I liked this movie better when it was Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl
Or when it was just... know, Stalker
So Roadside Picnic?
All of the above
What a game! My toddler went as a Snork for Halloween, this year.
deneb
"Natalie Portperson"
You're a progressive hero, Drinker 🤣🤣🤣
Reminds me of when George Carlin mocked Feminists back in the 90s and called David Letterman "David Letterperson"
The book explains a couple of your points: the team is all-female because they've tried previous teams that were all-male, mixed gender, etc. so it's kind of a trial-and-error thing. The crocodile is mutated in that way because animals from the sea have traveled into the rivers within the Shimmer.
As some others have also said, I think the bear is actually a really, really good movie monster.
Thats right. There are several novels about the Shimmer , and packing them into just one movie generates many questions. But sending in many teams is just dumb AF. What if the shimmer just kills EVERY human😆😆 would they send even their kids into? Dont know. Or just some drones on wheels...... Or just bombarding the shimmer with Nuclear warheads until it lets go.
@@skullyjones8234 It is implied in the novels that nothing worked to contain the Shimmer and it gradually expands until it will cover the entire planet so no they could not just bomb it. They can't send in drones because modern technology does not work inside it. I don't remember what exactly happens to modern things but I think it was something like inside the time works different so they rust/break faster and get overgrown, basically become unusable. Something like that. Since nothing worked to stop the Expansion and they can't get any information at all out of it they send it human teams by trial and error (because some actually return however they have "changed"). Obviously this was done to kind of explain the suicide missions otherwise it would be a boring story.
I just wanna know why they didnt take the beach route to get to the lighthouse in the first place. They never said they needed to go the same route as others or that they needed to recover data from the old HQ. The beach is obviously safer and impossible to get lost.
Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, but then I'd love to be a tree when I grow up. I could retire to the country and just hang out and photosynthesize. Be nice to still get wood way into my old age.
@@lurker993 Good point. I thought the same thing. Perhaps they tried and sharks with legs came out of the water and attacked teams who tried it first? lol. I always thought it was a missed opportunity to not show us how the shimmer effected ocean going life. I must admit though, this one of the only Drinker videos I disagree with. I absolutely loved the film
Half Stalker & Half Colour Out Of Space Directed by M. Night.
The word Shimmer also means: to reflect a wavering sometimes distorted light. So I believe it's a good name that fits the themes of the film.
When different things happen to different people I think it's accounting for their thoughts/brain waves mixing with the unstable nature of the Shimmer, and there is a line in the film that alludes to their different mental reactions the team has to being in the "Zone".
My major issues I had with the film are with the narrative set up, wooden acting and missed opportunities. The film doesn't take their initial journey into the "Zone" with any seriousness (could be a budget constraint). The world is facing an alien extinction event and they just yeet some science LARPers in with what appears to be no training or protective equipment. Was there no security expert before Portperson YOLOed into a secret government mission? The reality of the stakes are waifer thin.
The performances feel off and wooden. Especially the black dude she is cheating with, no one communicates like that. I agree that it appears like a choice to add gravitas to the film, but unlike a Tarkovsky the film struggles to blur the line between poetry and reality. I also believe that the deft hand of poetry in film(Tarkovsky) is built throughout the entire film and not just squeezing in surreal and stiff acting.
And lastly the film never plays with the unaccountable time in anyway. They wake up having missed 3 days at the start and then the film feels quite linear after. Huge missed opportunity to play with their mental states and time lost to help justify their unstable behaviour towards the end.
Decent Sci Fi that's a 7/10. I agree with others opinions on the theme being heavily linked to human trauma/cancer and self destruction. Could be a 9/10 under a different hand that attempeted to further peel back the deeper meanings and inject some life into the characters. Would love to see what a Tarkovsky or an early Riddly Scott would do with the same source material.
Bear was rad and the logic of the "Zone" literally falls apart when it's destroyed but Portperson and Star Wars beta still live.
Peace
I'd like to hear your opinion on the movie, "The Grey."
That was a very macho movie, and bleak. Usually he rips on movies, so it would have to go to his The Drinker Recommends pile. I liked it, myself. But I like most anything with that actor, I guess.
Me too same.
I never saw it but I remember my brother and dad thinking it was anticlimactic.
Good movie
Mixed feelings about that one, it did a really good job of setting atmosphere and tone.
The execution of completing the story is what turned a lot of people off to it.
Especially when you put spoilers of the movie in your trailer...
PC Natalie Portperson is a long way from the girl that played Matilda in "The Professional"
@Mr. Fuck Hughson of 123 Eat Shit Lane I was before the Weinsteining? You explain her amazing career and tiny talent then!
Natalie Portperson career peaked in 1994.
Kyle 1m I was thinking the same thing the whole time
I liked her in The Dark Knight Rises 😂
I remember saying the exact same thing about Dakota Fanning, i watched the Alienist series and although her acting is good, she kinda lost some charisma
The book the movie is based on is really good, and gradually reveals most of its secrets. There's also a poetry inside it that is completely absent from the film, bar some of the visuals. I think an adaptation would work much better as a series. A quick summary of the story would be something like this: an alien crashed into the planet 50 years ago, housed inside some kind of "prism". This prism breaks light, and shifts/morphs whatever it comes into contact with, mutating everything inside the shimmer. The shimmer expands as the range (intensity?) of the prism grows. The shiver not only influences whatever is inside, but also tries to copy and morph into it, so it can become more powerful by and increase its range by spreading ever more rapidly. And humanity can't seem to stop this infestation, losing who or whatever comes into contact with it. Except for the Port-person (I see what you did there) character, who is actually the first mutated entity created out of a human that is both self-aware and able to sustain itself outside of the shimmer without falling apart (unlike her former husband, who was merely a shell pretenting to be the man by the time he arrived at her doorstep).
As a self-conscious being that is both alien and human, Portperson realizes that she needs to go back inside to communicate with the alien, so she can figure out a way to stop it from destroying all it comes into contact with. To find some sort of solution to its predicament, being stuck on this planet by itself, with no way out, and no real way to communicate. But I guess the film never got there. Which is a shame really. So read the books instead!
That is what is on the surface. Here is what it's really about in a nutshell… Annihilation is like a modern war movie. The journey (the pain) you experience changes you in such a way that can never really go home again in that you will never see anyone (especially friends or family) or anything the same way again because of the changes the pain has made in you. The doppelgänger at the end represents her pain which she defeats and ultimately get to go home. She goes home, but the pain the journey itself has caused has changed her and her husband forever.
@@phadrus4435 I was simply describing the plot, not the thematic core. Something I found the film conveys quite poorly, by being opaque to a fault. Both the book and the film did remind me a lot of Apocalypse Now (and The Heart of Darkness on which it is based) , which explores similar themes: a journey to a world that changes one forever, to travel beyond the point of no return and humanity, to lose oneself and come out a different person. In a way, I like your description of the film better than the film itself. Which unfortunately falls short of the book it is based on, which I love dearly.
Well put. I loved the books, reading them was a bit little walking in a fog but by the end most of it cleared out and you can see the overall picture. There were some "scenes" that I went back and read a few times (something I almost never do when reading), like for example the first event at the pub (third book). Damn, that was some intense writing.
The book was a chore, and what little I read of the second was worse.
Plot points (contrivances) being explained more thoroughly doesn't actually help all that much. Less loose ends, sure, but like another commenter said, it is effectively an anthology that got merged. CT himself points it out, through the _Wouldn't It Be Cool_ section of the video.
The writing, on the a technical level, was incredibly dry. None of the characters felt like people, just vehicles for an idea, and predestined to end badly. The Black Guy Always Dies First sort of deal, except it's everyone and they're all made of cardboard. It's not possible to get invested into a character (let alone many) if you know there is mind-fuckery going on, since all actions become suspect, all motives become esoteric.
It's like _Redshirts_ and _House of Leaves_ had a baby, but not in a good way.
@@axelord4ever I'm sorry to hear that. I read all three back to back, so I can't say i share your perspective. Instead I found them challenging and philosophical, an exploration of identity, of man vs nature, as what was mentioned above. There was a beauty to this savage new reality, this fusion of local and foreign. The second book was very interesting because it showed the complete opposite of the first book: a stale, rigid world of bureaucracy, hiding as many secrets as the first book. The third felt like the fusion of both worlds, the familiar trying to come to terms with the unknown, well aware both sides are ill equiped to ever truly understand each other, but having to find a way to coexist regardless.
Really liked that movie, it has its flaws, but I think the questions that it brings up were fun to think about.
The movie that somehow made Tessa Thompson literally more wooden.
She was bland as a sorrority witch in a low budget flick around 20 years ago, she’s still bland now..
Tessa Thompson turning into a tree was clearly an allegory for her wooden acting
They still can self reflect
Portperson 🤣🤣🤣
I wish someone would call her that to her face!
"You're name is insensitive to all genders!!!"
Her name really has no place in 2020. 😂
you are name
But person has "son" in it
Not even her real name dum dums.
@@Eldritch-1 riiiight, and I suppose you would have me believe the moon is made of bees.
I like how you couldn't even give anything against the bear monster. Great shit on that one.
Really though, I heard nothing of this movie until it was playing, at which point I thought, "Hey, this is the Color out of Space!" And from then on, I was just concerned with how it's a pretty sweet take on a Lovecraft story, and really nails the cosmic horror parts. It's not a terrific movie, but it's creepy and weird, and that's fine with me.
Natalie Portperson should’ve turned to a tree too to match her never ending wooden acting
Thank goodness I’m not one of the few who’s always believed she’s stunk in everything she’s been in. Lol. I mean, I am a natural Portperson hater but whatever 🤷🏻♀️🤣👍
Portperson was okay in V for Vendetta when she only had to be a Doctor Who wooden exposition/companion.
Her starting in a picture automatically lowers the bar on interesting.
LOL got em
How she got an Oscar is beyond me. But, also, have you noticed that she is just like every other Oscar winner....every movie she's been in since is terrible. Okay, there's a couple of exceptions (Denzel Washington, Hillary Swank).
AYYY
Henry Cavill said it best while portraying Geralt: "You talk nonsense while making long and meaningful faces."
@Cinematic Passages nah he is pretty ok. Check out Mission Impossible: Fallout.
Its easy to think he is a bad actor when in so many unfortunately bad movies.
@@denkerbosu3551 he’s like Liam Neeson. He’s a good actor but in so many bad roles. Gerald, however, is seemingly the most perfect role he’s had yet.
@Cinematic Passages Wow, you seem to be really full of yourself...
Must be a filmcritic...
@Cinematic Passages You have more ego than you have any sense of self awareness.
@Cinematic Passages Arrogant prick
The bear very much felt more akin to a Wendigo/Skinwalker. With it having a skull for its head, imitating voices, and being intelligent.
Good observation.
I have heard about skinwalkers recently, can someone explain what they are and do?
@@questworldiangreenknight7455 Skin walkers are native American folklore. They are usually shamans that have the ability to shapeshift. They are told to be evil and mark their victims. Marked one is troubled by this entity and can cause death too.
@@questworldiangreenknight7455 WEREWOLVES poon
Allow me to shed some light on this situation. Skinwalkers are human beings who turn into wolves or bears and back again through sorcery. Basically a case of lycanthropy. The Wendigo is a little more interesting, it's a beast that is created by human beings indulging in cannibalism, and is cursed to always be hungry. It has traits of both a human and a deer, and has gnawed off the skin around it's own face in a bid to satisfy its own hungriness. The beast in this film is closer to a wendigo than a skin walker, since it has exposed skull and shares the wendigo's ability to speak with a human voice. The only similarity it has to a skinwalker is the shape of a bear.
It is visual poetry. The entire film is an emotional metaphor. Fans were misled by marketing that sold the film as being sci-fi horror. It is about grief, relationships, and self-destruction.
The book is great if u haven't read it
This is the greatest cosmic horror movie in decades.
@@jarrensmith1060 Arrival is better than this
@@jarrensmith1060yeah I'm surprised he didn't like the movie. Maybe bc it needed the audience to come up with theories as to explain supposed plot holes? This move really intrigued me
But still, this movie has too many plot holes and absurdity.
"discount Michelle Rodriquez"
So discount discount Linda Hamilton?
She had to stack a lotta coupons to get to where she is today.
Thrift store Linda Hamilton
No, Vasquez.
Mmm, Michelle Rodriguez. There’s a gal I wouldn’t mind having a wrestling match with.
Discount discount discount Sigourney weaver?
"Natalie Portperson"
"Discount Michelle Rodriguez"
"The shitter"
"I DON'T KNOW"
It makes me wonder what Gina’s relationship is with Michelle!
Gina Rodriguez is the actress who The Drinker called discount Michelle Rodriguez, and I though that was quite humorous.
By the way, did some research, and turns out she is not.
th-cam.com/video/MlkfdU9xQe0/w-d-xo.html&app=desktop
lmaooo I love this channel
isn't michelle rodriguez just a discount herself? maybe she is bargain bin rodriguez
It’s PortMA’AM
" It's Dumber Than You Think"
This goes for pretty much every movie in the past 5 years.
There's been good and even great movies in the past 5 years. They're just hard to see under the shit ones.
Hereditary, Tenet. Two whole movies.
I think I would have to agree (sadly) I mean there have been some decent ones here & there..but I honestly can't say there have been true stand out films lately..hollywood nowadays fall way short of any type of Real entertainment..it's just seems HollyWierd is get'n weirder & weirder 🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️💨😐😐😐
Oh, so you’ve watched every film since 2015? Please elaborate.
I 99.2% agree with you!
I usually really like your takes on things, especially modern Trek and the like. But this film was legit pretty good.
yes and the shark croc thing can be easily explained simce the shimmer was on the coastline and crocs are known to wander into sea of they are that close...plus all the rest wasnt that high brow but i absolutely loved it...its well paced and really unsettling
I agree. I think it's okay for people to have differing opinions. I rented this movie from Redbox twice because I liked it so much. I don't even know if I'd call it a "good movie". I just enjoyed the experience.
The books had some really interesting ideas, and a disappointing ending. Guess which aspect they adapted?
The Area X trilogy was amazing, this movie was trash. lol
I liked only the first book
You guessed it.
Frank Stallone
@@johngaltspeaking213 you know what, you’re a real jerk!
@@joelsefur666 really? I loved the ideas of the first one, but book two was filler, literally nothing happened. I couldn't even get through the first half of book three it was so dumb.
This film is just the product of someone vaguely describing the plot of “Stalker” over the phone to someone else.
that was fkn spot on XDDDD hahaah
I think you mean Roadside Picnic
@@jmarra07 Yes, Stalker is more or less an adaptation of that book, Mr Intellectual Man.
@@jmarra07 Strugatsky brothers wrote the book and the story of stalker, which ofc its based on the book. same concept
"Annihilation" is basically dumbed-down Tarkovsky for Americans.
Yep, I think you hit the nail on the head. It was like a collection of really awesome short movies, but when connected together made more of a mess than a masterpiece.
I also appreciate how you acknowledged that the movie didn't push any femanazi agenda. Something that shouldn't need to be praised, but that is the world we live in.
"the movie didn't push any femanazi agenda"
Haha its highly realistic. It just shows how fast women turn on each other when facing adversity.
@@joelreis5366 🤔, didn’t family guy make the same joke? th-cam.com/video/Lw-DFGFaVUY/w-d-xo.html
“The shitter is slowly expanding” 💀
“Natalie Portman cheats on her husband, then he dies. But then he comes back and she can tell it’s not really him. So she feels bad, wants to find out what happened to the real husband, and goes into an alien swamp. Then she comes out, doesn’t tell anyone that her husband is an alien, and decides the world has to die because she got some pipe on the side.”
- me, whenever people ask about this movie
Sums it all up. Brilliant.
@Lord Brain Lord Portperson has a nice ring to it.
And the book this drivel is based on even makes less sense. Can you imagine that? All this book is leaving you with after reading the last words is this nasty feeling of just having been scammed.
@Lord Brain Well, considering how wooden her acting is, as well as her plank-like build, be careful not to get splinters... :D
She didn’t know it was not her husband. She only knew he was acting strangely. She definitely didn’t know he was an alien. What movie did you guys watch?
Not wearing hazmats suites is what killed me.
ikr...esp when natalie portperson says it cud be cz of radition poisoning his husband had multiple organ failures
or why didn't they just take a boat to the lighthouse from the beginning... so many plot holes
"Suites" oh the irony 😂😂😂
@@ironmonkey1512 Ah, you see, that's because the writers are trying to be "clever" and their own script proves them to be dumb.
They try to make you believe they don't exactly know where the centre of the Shitter is, despite making it very clear at the start of the movie that the Shitter was actually pretty small to begin with and then started expanding, which means they can pretty accurately pinpoint where the meteor crashed.
It killed them as well.
The Drinker: "These are cool ideas, but unfortunately they have to be supported by a strong, intelligent story that draws you in, keeps you invested and delivers a satisfying payoff that ties everything together".
Any Hollywood producer: "I don't know the meaning of 11 of these words".
Read this the moment he said " these are cool ideas"...😆
Basically, Metaphors and Symbolism by themselves don't make a great experience. There has to be a relatable, substantial story that has a strong foundation to build off of, otherwise you're just left with pointless, pretentious fluff that doesn't really go anywhere.
How wrong I was. I saw the trailers and was excited to see it. What a farce. I hear people saying how "good" it was? And like you, I think they must have watched a different movie.. Sir,, you NAILED this! It tries to be smart, cutting edge, and thought provoking.. And fails on all fronts.
This movie would’ve been a good, 45 minute, sci fi anthology show episode.
Exactly.
Natalie Portperson and discount Michelle Rodrigez .... That guy is killing me
Discount Idris Elba also!
The alligator / shark hybrid and the other weird mutations (e.g. bushes shaped like people) are kind of explained as being due to the Shimmer having a distortion effect on DNA, where the DNA of any biological entities in its area can be randomly shuffled. So you get the bushes picking up the "body shape" DNA from humans, and alligators with shark teeth. The Shimmer is on a coastline, so it picked up DNA from a normal shark in the ocean to combine with the alligator.
It's a really interesting idea for an "alien" because it's not some dudes in a flying saucer that we can try to blow up, instead it is an incomprehensible phenomenon, something that we couldn't even begin to figure out how it works or how to combat it. It's not even clear if the Shimmer is intelligent, or just a strange natural occurrence that happens rarely in our universe. But yeah, they didn't really do a lot with the idea, the movie is all questions and no answers.
I think the story of when the asteroid first landed, how it effected the people who lived in the area, and the attempts to research and understand the Shimmer would have been a lot more interesting.
NEEEEEEEERD!!!!
So the lovecraft story, colour out of space. It's very much a similar and darker film/story, I wouldn't be surprised if they were straight up inspired by it...
They were doing just that in the movie
Joke on you for trying to explain Annihilation to a drunk edge lord.
But the story is very similar like you suggest at the end. The asteroid lands, a team of scientists try to make researches about this area and find hints about what has happened and is happening there. We saw how the Shimmer messed with the body and mind of the people who are living in this area. We saw how it affected the five scientists and we got hints that other people endured a similar or worse fate
I absolutely like watching Drinker's takes on movies but sometimes I believe Drinker either doesn't watch the movies or doesn't pay attention. The movie gives all the answers to his questions.
Go on
Tbf, he may be drunk as a pig when he's watching it
@@yok3rsp8No, it's not fair when your job is to literally pay attention to the film.
@yok3rsp8 nah that's just his online persona lol the man is built like a twig in real life and doesn't even have that much of an accent
"The movie gives all the answers to his questions."
It doesn't. I watched the movie, and I didn't understand shit. It's one of the two movies where I got so lost, I couldn't understand what's the point of the whole thing (the other was Southland Tales).
One time I heard somebody pronounce the word as "Annie-high-lation" and that's been stuck in my head ever since when thinking about this movie.
Try saying Anihilation Nation Station 10 times fast.
Natalie Portperson is the best thing I've heard all year. Luckily its only the first week of January.
The Rise of Palpatine really has broken Poe, then again it was a miracle he could even make cohesive sentences at all after TLJ.
Annihilation came out before TLJ though
@@DeVron001 I don't feel so well.....
I think playing the purple X-men villain is what did him in
"And then Tessa Thompson says f*** it and turns into a tree" - Drinker, never change brother :D
My friend put it best: "Annihilation is a beautiful heap of nonsense"
I'd like to know how the title relates to *anything* in the movie, aside from a vague threat of alien menace. ='[.]'=
It is a beautiful looking movie
@@Raycheetah In physics annihilation is the conversion of matter into energy. That's what happens in the movie.
Annihilation is a crap version of Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space
@@ministryoftruth8499 There was a Nicholas Cage movie based on Colour Out of Space. Had some good things and several bad things...
I couldn't stop laughing at the "I don't know[s]"
it was fun in small doses but when he spammed them at the end it got old real quick
Good drinking game every time mr poe says so
I hope he uses this line for every video from now on
Tessa Thompson is possibly one of the most mediocre, forgettable, bland actors in Hollywood right now... and that says ALOT.
She was fun in thor 3, but that whole movie was fun so maybe it carried her. Apart from that, you're absolutely correct.
That says a lot considering Brie Larson exists in the same sphere.
@@jburdsinfuse Brie Larson elicits a response at least.
Who?
It's a tie between her and Brie for the title of being The Absolute Worst. The fictional title is held by Laurie from the Walking Dead.
The book was TRIPPY, and it was always going to present a huge challenge to adapt for the screen. They obviously struggled lol.
On the subject of the all women team, they actually explained it in the book. They've tried all male military teams nearly every time before. The males tend to go crazier faster and tend to kill other team members etc.
I really appreciate that actually, it’s something that is touched based on in an anime called Claymore, where the male subjects go crazy while they female tend to control it better
They left out the most interesting part of the book: the crawler.
I watched this on a flight to Japan and it actually made the flight LONGER.
Probably because the pilots were watching the movie too and got so bored they missed and had to go around again.
lol, good one
Ayyeee, same. That movie along with 4 others because of that 13 hours flight lol
I had to watch it in two sits, I simply couldn't handle the stupidity of the plot and characters
😂😂😂😂
Perhaps the book is better?...
It's pretty incredible that Natalie Portperson's best acting was when she was 12.
The Professional was SUCH an awesome movie.
@@asdf51501 It was. I usually can not stand kids in movies, but she did a great job. She's gotten worse with every role since!
She peaked too early
@@abark The whole point was that she had to grow up fast in her life, so she was thinking of herself as a young adult, and acted like one. That was a solid performance. The next thing I saw her in was Star Wars Episode 1, where she was kind of not so great, and that was in the 90s. I can't think of a good movie now besides possibly Star Wars Episode 1 which really wasn't, but it's a masterpiece compared to Disney's crap they've been putting out in my opinion. I totally agree with you. :)
Now, it seems she just does woke nonsense and complains when men don't watch her movies.
She was ok in Garden State.
Ever since that cringey “They fly now!” line from the rise of Skywalker, it’s just been hard to take Poe seriously wherever he appears.
Even the actor himself thinks that line was pretty dumb.
he actually was in that movie?!
@@cyborgparrot1996 do actors not have any say in what goes in the script?
@@heintz256 The high ranking ones do as they can pick their movies, but even that has it's extent at the fine line between synonyms and script rewrites.
Give him a chance to shine in his acting career. People likes to make fun of "I have the high ground" to Ewan and he still success till this days and he seems like he's having fun with it.
Annihilation follows the modern movie-making formula. Begin with interesting ideas and thought provoking questions that persuade you to invest. Then languish on with a series of disjointed events, without bothering to address any of the initial ideas and offering no resolution. Masterpiece!
Once again, Jar Jar Abrams is to blame. He and Damon "LOST" Lindeloff created an entire generation of psuedo-intellectual "mystery box"-B.S.-laden scifi films that all think they're Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", when in reality not a single one of them is fit to wash the pit stains from Dave Bowman's exercise shirts.
Annihilation is The Colour Out of Space bent over the table with Hollywood...
In one scentence, Annihilation is the best example for modern mainstream media, style over substance.
That's because it's all about the themes. The themes, man. THE THEMES.
This is why, I think, we latch onto Christopher Nolan so much. He seems to be one of the very few writer-directors who doesn't forget the central theme/narrative while adding on these overwhelming ideas. Except for Tennet, unfortunately. That was his first let-down for me. But Inception is fantastic for maintaining its core narrative of overcoming guilt and regret, while throwing all this mind-boggling science fiction in there.
Every time he says “Portperson” I crack up.
Me too 😂😂😂😂
I read your comment just as he said it! Lmfao it's brilliant!!
i crack up too XD
Tessa Thompchild.
I laughed every time he said "the shitter" perhaps i just have a juvenile sense of humor 🤔
This movie's plot sounds like a cheapass version of the "Roadside Picnic" by Strugatsky brothers...
@Beverly Mandahl read The Southern Reach trilogy - the actual books this film was very loosely based on.
Get out of here STALKER :P
It’s more based on Lovecraft’a Color out of Space than it’s source material
Thank you! that's what I was thinking. Roadside Picnic has great world building, mystery and good characters. This is just a Hollywood girl power flick. Go watch Stalker, million times better.
I saw S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a few months before I watched this movie and they are very similar.
LOVE this movie….loved the score, the visuals, the ambiguity of the outcome, all of it. Just brilliant cosmic horror and I’m so happy all the top comments agree 🙌
He never misses a Natalie Portperson, and it never stops being funny.
I always laugh when he says "T H E M E S S A G E" shit always cracks me up
It always kills me when he says it 🤣
I thought he would have gone with Natalie PortThem
He missed Tessa Thomperson
Trudeau: excuse me, but it's PortPeoplekind.
🥴🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 "I don't feel very well" caught me off guard
Hey! great to see you here
Love the channel
I was ready to say "I don't know" with him
I think this whole film did!
We need a video crossover between the Drinker and you
That bear scene tho... hands down the most frightning movie scene I've seen in the last decade. It was as disturbing as it was horrifying.
Also I love the cosmic horror element in the movie, the entire idea that we're face-to-face with an unexplainable force that we just cannot comprehend. The more we try to examine it, the more questions it leaves us. Surrounding it all is a deep sense of dread, and sense that things are not right, things are dangerous, and we are not meant to interact with it. I really wish the movie could've capture those elements better, but it wasn't a bad film, not an amazing one either though.
The movie was partially successful at portraying this, but it was ultimately not very satisfying. I think it was a rewrite or two away from being really amazing, though. The movie was really slow and ponderous, but it wasn't tedious or boring. Well, until the climax. That was pretty tedious.
Check out the books. It's a great read.
@@mattjones7226 Yeah the books do a much better job at the cosmic horror elements. There are just somethings you can't translate from a book to a movie.
Actually watched this just yesterday. My biggest gripe was the characters. They're paper thin and the big reveal in the end (about Poe) was all but wasted, because my first thought after seeing him was "well, either he was told to act like an amnesiac and blew it, or that's some kind of clone". I was also 50/50 on who is going to be the "traitor" (there's always one) and since my picks were cass or anya (the likeable or the annoying one), it was kinda obvious not too far into the movie, too. The ending was just meh. I think I might like the books more.
Oh yeah, the setting also gave me strong vibes from Stalker (obviously) and the novel The Artificial Kid, in which there's is a "substance", which causes large areas of a planet to break down whatever it touches and grow into something else.
I liked th fact that the alien s not good or bad, but just an organism with the urge to evolve and adapt.
Saw an interview of the director. He actually had a desire in this movie that was pretty good. Not sure if he hit the mark. But his intent was good. He just wanted to create the idea of an alien that was actually alien. Nothing human like. The end went away from that concept but
I heard he wrote the screenplay based on memories from the books years after he read them. The bear isn’t in the book trilogy, but from another book by the author.
The alien at the end looks just like those early 1990s CG demo stick figures back when CG was barely emerging and then was very limited computing capacity.
@@MikeB12800 The books weren’t any better.
Really these cheap "people" won't pay good science fiction writers to adapt their works which are better than how they handle the ideas by far. This movie seems like the scriptwriter took the general ideas from "Roadside Picnic" and combined it with "Invasion of The Body Snatchers" and perhaps they saw Tarkovsky's "Stalker" or "Solaris" and thought they could make something as good. I wish these people would just pony up and get writers like Bear or Baxter to collaborate on an adaptation. Drinker when are you going to write a sciffy script?
Hmmm intriguing!!!
I agree, this movie really shows how to make a female-centric movie without alienating the male audience. As for the story, I think I see where they were going : the age-old trope of the alien lifeform that mimics everything and might eventually replace us all. That would explain why Nathalie Portbeing killed it with fire. But she couldn't be sure that fire would kill it, so that's a bit dumb. Ultimately I think they wanted to create an alien that was truly alien... and that sounds like a good idea until you realize that if you make something too alien the audience will have zero clue as to what it does and why. And thus the movie becomes a random sequence of random cool shots. It was serviceable as an afternoon movie while I was coding a deep neural network, but that's about it. The cinematography was on point.
Can you review "the 13th Warrior" That movie is underrated.
I've been explaining this movie to people, no ones ever seen it! Awesome film! Lol
I said you dig like a dawg!!
@@aaronlockley9207
"You could have killed him at will! Why deception?"
@@andrzejadamowicz3753 because deception is the POINT
this is one of my favorite films
I love how TH-cam has the movie with a big button saying "buy or rent" up next to this video explaining why it's bad.
you're not alone in the "Event Horizon" obsession. kudos drinker!
I actually think that this film is pretty good. It's a new take on the cosmic horror genre and does a lot of things right. The soundtrack is particularly terrifying.
Same. It's cosmic horror, and it's a nice take on a genre that's slowly starting to get back into mainstream viewing. Is it perfect? No. Are the books better? Considering you have a trilogy's worth to build character, exposition, internal monologue and deep dive into the unknown without the cost of a shorter film run or difficulty coming across to the audience, definitely.
I respect CD's points against it, and I do share some of his opinions about certain directorial changes, but just because he doesn't like it doesn't mean I have to hate a movie I enjoyed.
@@cainyourkids "but just because he doesn't like it doesn't mean I have to hate a movie I enjoyed" why would you even think that? You are totally entitled of your opinions. Even if you like CD it does not mean you have to put him on an altar and believe to or agree with everything he says and thinks. Seriously man, you should have a higher considetation of yourself lol
@matej nemec no art is “objectively” anything
@@dhdhejehuwbs843 Ridiculous nonsense used as shelter for mediocrity. There are tons of technically objective ways to gauge artworks. Just as an example, if your story is character-driven is not a satire, and your characters are all cliche stereotypes, your work is objectively bad. If you're trying to make an abstract painting and you don't know how to balance colors and just splash paint randomly onto your canvas, your painting is objectively shit. If you don't have any decent ideas and just copies Mozart, your music is objectively shit, because it's just repetitive, and will certainly fail to hit Mozart quality. How do I know that? Because it's been tried thousands of times since Mozart's time with the same result over and over again. So, stop trying to justify small-minded mediocrity with "all art is subjective and just a matter of opinion". It's NOT. Go educate yourself theoretically by reading good art theory books.
@@mariadocarmosobreira8323 right, but if you've got something that objectively ticks all those boxes doesn't necessarily mean you're going to like it. Otherwise everyone would just be liking the exact same things - and also, all "educated" art critics would agree with each other, and clearly they don't. So there is am element of subjectivity involved.
I do agree, though, that this postmodernist "everything is equally good" crap is nonsense. I think we can all agree that the crap you see in any postmodern art gallery is shit.
The sound affects where dope and that bear...man it was perfectly done. I've seen so many scary movies and that bear scene is on my top ten.
Underrated movie. I generally agree with Critical Drinker, but not this time.
@The Monster Under Your Bed Forget the monster. I liked this movie because of the unconventional antagonist who clearly had a motive that left both the characters and the audience confused as to what that was.
That bear with human voice truly freaked me out. Not many things does it.
@@crubs83 i think you confuse between great visual vs great movie
@@boboboy8189 Just beaucse you dont think its a good movie does not make it a bad movie. Just becuase you dont resonate with it does not mean others dont.
The "I don't know" and apathetic "no" I think need to be in the sound clip rotation when something is just too sad to comment on.
The bear was literally what made me watch the movie.
Turns out that was the best part.
The bear was the coolest part, it was the only thing that kinda made sense with the plot
agreed
Creepy AF.
But does that excuse this pretentious mindfuck?
Read a discussion about creepy parts in movies and the bear scene was brought up, that's what got me to watch the movie. It was a creepy scene, but not really that great. Didn't make up for the rest of the movie. Probably would have liked the scene more if I hadn't heard the hype before watching.
I see "I-don-know" becoming a new TCD meme.
The plot is a bit too similar to a Roadside Picnic, with the only difference that the latter is very engaging and original
And Stalker, the movie about the book. Watching the movie I thought "this is discount Stalker".
I believe this is mostly inspired by Lovecraft's Colour Out Of Space
@@TheRestartPoint i heard it took from both Color Out of Space & Roadside Picnic
The bear scene was creepy AF.
Drinker, can you use Poe Isaac's, "I dont know?" For most things. Its pretty great.
Well, it makes sense.
I think his answer to your question will be "i doo know"
The story is basically a mutant merge of Roadside Picnic and Solaris - everything original has been taken from these two novels but without the deep philosophy of neither of them.
#3 novels
And more than likely color out of space
Isn't the movie based on a novel?
Yeah I must agree - this movie is pointless, even the plot is pointless, as in: it didn't made me feel any kind of emotion and to be honest I don't even remember a single thing from it after they enter the zone, except for some characters and that stupid mutant boar or whatever that was.
It was based on Jeff Vandermeers series
I love how this movie says everything within the Zone from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. can have its DNA spliced with everything else,
and then shows trees made out of GLASS.....
I blame the 'non-GMO' stickers on salt.
Those were trees?
I like to think it's to do with the silicon in the sand.
But actually explaining more than that is impossible.
Arts majors rarely take biology. :D That's why the best writers have always done research!!!! Not so in hollywood.
They were guessing. It's actually good writing. It wasn't a pseudo fourth wall break to explain the fictional science to the audience. Like what you get in a Godzilla movie. It was characters guessing and getting it completely wrong, because the real answers were even more distorted.
I want to add some perspective to this movie. Hopefully this comes across as friendly and informative.
To start, I've read the book *Annihilation* and the two sequels that form the Southern Reach trilogy, and had the good fortune to attend a talk by the author, Jeff Vandermeer, that took place at my university soon after the movie was released.
[Side note: if anyone is interested, I can try and put up a link to an edited recording of that talk (probably just taking out the Q&A as it's short and not that great), let me know.]
Having read the books and attended this talk, I will say that there are some things to consider when thinking about this movie:
- To his credit, Jeff Vandermeer is a talented creative force, and has developed many interesting ideas and stories in his books. But, he also has a very, how to put it kindly, "different" writing style. It alternates between graceful and easy to get lost in, to being very tedious, meandering and unfocused. Reading his books--or at-least *these* books--is often more of an exercise in breaking down his style rather than directly engaging in the story, if that makes sense. To admit some of my own bias, I can say that for me, the books after the first one were very much a chore to get through at times, because of this.
- Based on what he said in the talk I attended, you can say with decent accuracy that Vandermeer often takes a postmodern approach to writing (in the literary sense, not the political/philosophical sense). Because of this, many of his words, characters and plot elements come from a very surreal, dadaist creative bedrock. He deliberates lets many things form and grow amorphously in a sort-of unconscious stream. This sometimes works in his favor, but many times doesn't.
As to why this movie specifically is such chaotic and bewildering creation, that's because of two additional major reasons in addition to the previous ones laid out above:
+ Vandermeer says unambiguously in his talk that the book *Annihilation* came into existence because he had gone through a very intensive dental surgery wherein he was given high doses of painkillers for several days afterwards during his recovery. This led him to have, as he puts it, "a weird dream one night." From this dream, he extracted elements that he then fused with his experiences hiking through the wilderness in North Florida to create the Annihilation story. So there you have it, the basis of the book is rooted in a drugged-out hallucinatory fever dream, that was then filtered through his writing style.
+ Then, when the movie was to be adapted, the director Alex Garland specifically said that he wanted to do an adaptation that was, and I quote, "like a dream of the book." So the movie is literally a dreamlike interpretation of... a story that was an interpretation of a dream.
You can see how this would make for a movie that could possibly work as a surrealist sci-fi cosmic horror-show, but only if executed in a very specific way.
Personally, I both like and dislike the movie for different reasons, but hopefully this helped some people look at the final product with a bit more to go on.
And a few quick points:
- Vandermeer is a very likable guy, though he is a much better at speaking about and discussing his creative ideas in a educational/didactic way, rather than actually writing them out in novels, in my view.
- Vandermeer has made clear that many notions that people got from the movie--like that the all-women expedition was meant to be a Social Justice move, or interpreting the movie as an allegory for cancer and disease--were not how he personally viewed it.
In fact, the book makes clear that choice of all women was because the Southern Reach organization has been trying for decades to understand Area X and what "it" is doing to the area that it has taken over, but their expeditions keep ending with disturbing, disastrous results. Thus, the scientists involved are trying to "alter the variables" by tweaking the personnel makeup of each new mission, eventually seeing of an all-women expedition.
- Finally, while Vandermeer says he likes the movie well enough on its own terms, he will push for more creative involvement and control on his own part for any future adaptation of his material.
That's all I've got. If anyone wants to hear that talk, let me know.
Tldr, but whats in the books doesnt really matter
I went into this movie totally blind. I left thinking "that was dumb." Thanks for backing me up on this.
"I guess the vague implication here is that human nature is the true enemy, and its our own self-destructive tendencies that make the Shitter so dangerous for us." - the exact theme perfectly explored in the far superior film Annihilation ripped off: Stalker.
Wasn't STAKLER also a series of games?
Exactly. It's a poor man's Stalker... but since Stalker is an amazing movie and the random ideas mashed together in Annihilation were good... I guess I like that movie! Not an amazing movie but still worth the watch IMO.
Never thought of that, but fuck yeah, you nailed it. Except, oddly, the visuals in Stalker were better.
Stalker is based on Roadside Picnic.
This film is based off of the books "The Southern reach trilogy".
This is the prequel to Thor: Love and Thunder, isn't it?
@ukkowalski that is indeed the title
@ukkowalski I’m pretty sure it’s the arc where Natalie Portperson’s character becomes Thor, taking place in an alternate universe.
@@the1sonder884 AKA "The One Thor Movie I will Never, Ever Watch".
@@ItsMrAssholeToYou Or if Jane gets fat. I love my BBWs!
So, I actually had the opposite experience watching the movie: I walked into thinking it was really dumb and pretentious and it wasn't until the third act that I was genuinely surprised that it had something to say. Also, a few of your critiques seem to completely misunderstand the movie:
For example, 5:07 is explained by the fact that literally everyone is going insane and their minds are being warped by The Shimmer.
7:50 Essentially everything in The Shimmer is combining and mutating so it increases character flaws and insecurities in people AND combines the DNA randomly with things around you. So, for the plants, the one lady was putting plants into her skin to turn herself into a plant, and with the bear it combined with its victims eating humans made it more human.
8:26 That's not reaching. That's literally the theme of the movie. The movie is about how humans have self-destructive tendencies and will choose the worst possible choices out of curiosity. All of the main characters have some form of self-destruction whether it be cancer, alcoholism, suicidal tendencies, infidelity, or whatever it may be, and all went on a suicide mission out of curiosity. The ending establishes that the Shimmer is merely combining with people and mimicking their traits but in an imperfect way, so when it is handed a flare, it kills itself out of curiosity and intrigue.
The acting, I will agree, isn't very strong. A lot of people are very understated in their acting and don't seem to understand what is going on.
My overall opinion of this movie is that it is 2/3 filler and build-up for a sequence the director really wanted to make and the last 1/3 of the film is worth it. The first 2/3 of the film has fairly generic cinematography and rather uninteresting dialogue that looks like it was made rather quickly, but then the last third of the movie knocks it out of the park.
What I asked myself the whole time: why didn‘t they send tanks like in Stalker? (I know that it failed horribly in Stalker but it would be the logical thing to do for the military)
They tried sending in all sorts of stuff and nothing came back, why would tanks be any different?
@@Zwaolin How do you know tanks would work? Modern tanks are full of technology that might not work in the Zone, and while T-34-85 would do, it doesn't have the protection good enough for the crew, thus the crew would be affected by the Zone.
@@Zwaolin Maybe they've tried and it didn't work?
@@hermitgreenn Someones triggered
@@Zwaolin They only sent underequipped scientists because it wasn't a "real" expedition, it was just the site director's last ditch attempt at entering the anomaly before dying of cancer. I don't think she ever expected to return alive, she just wanted some answers before dying. They mentioned that all the previous expeditions were military in nature, and the only camera footage we see from the previous expedition shows a larger group of soldiers, who probably brought more equipment with them (they're insane by the time we see them, so we get no info about their original mission). You usually don't send tanks into a heavily overgrown and unknown forest terrain without battalion-size support including engineers to clear the way, not to mention fuel concerns for a multi-day expedition (0.6 MPG for the M1 Abrams, for example). Plus you might want to work out why things can't return before sacrificing that many resources since it could be futile, for example if physics within the zone was incompatible with life. With the additional secrecy concerns it becomes even harder to assign large forces to the problem. Portman's husband in the movie is special forces so it's easy to cover up his disappearance, but it's harder to magically hide the reassignment and subsequent loss of so much manpower and hardware.
“Thought provoking story”
Yep, those critics definitely smoked some grass while watching this movie
Just like the cast did to give this performance
That's clearly one of these cases in which if you asked them "so what thought exactly?", they'd be stomped. I bet all of them who used that word to describe the movie couldn't even tell you what the movie is actually about.
The movie does have interesting concepts
But the thing is... the execution is not very good.
People will say "Explaining the horror makes the movie feel boring" but when you have dozens of characters asking what the hell is inside The Zone, it is kinda hard to not facepalm and being told to swallow it.
I think they were smoking when they made this movie!
Actually, yeah. It's a great stoner movie. Puts you on the actors level.
Was it some kind of stupid way of redoing "Stalker"?.... "I don't know.."
Daaamn you, I had the same thought!
Stephen King´s "in the tall grass" is also kind of an iteration of the premise.
I saw a summary of this film 2 years ago and I thought it was super cool. Then I played STALKER and it was way better.
Well, most movies are stupid compared to Stalker
It's okay to admit you didn't watch Stalker, no need to side step it
I thought this movie was one of the best sci-fi thrillers made in years. As for the silly things they say it could be explained away by dissorientation. There cells and their mind were being scrambled and fragmented by the shimmer it they were slowly going nuts so if anything they said made sense that wouldn't make sense get it
Her name is Natalie Portman but not only just Portman, Portwoman and Portchildren too.
But did You Portslaughter Her without Portmercy?
Natalie Manport?
You missed some horribly stupid things: They already sent in several expeditions into the shimmer. And when her husband returns they put him into quarantine.
HOWEVER: when the team goes into the shimmer they are equipped like going to a hiking tour. When me and some buddies watched this movie some months ago, we started yelling "hazard suit" because it was so obvious. Also: they know it affects communication. Well, if you already sent in several teams and they got lost, how about trying to get a landline in there? They could do it in WW2, so why not in this movie? Also: They know their target is at the beach... did nobody ever try to get there by ship?!
This movie is full of absurdities and stupidity!
@TomeOfBattle it's worth it for the tension buildup and soundtrack alone.
Nah, its just you thats stupid.
Your the type that doesnt buy a delicious crunchy apple cause it has a tiny blemish on it....Peter perfect, are ya...the movie's a classic, idiot...
@@karenmcdonald4263 Little tip for you: don't call people stupid, and then immediately mix up your/you're... just sayin'...
The alligator and the bear were the best parts of the movie.
@@karenmcdonald4263
1) I'm allergic to apples so I wouldn't even buy shiny ones.
2) I can appreciate bad movies, even the ones with ridiculous setups. But those setups are consitent in themselves.
This movie is figuratively a polished turd. It's a trash movie with a Hollywood polish.
Po's " I...don't...know..."' can applied to the SW sequel trilogy as well.
that's why our host repeated that here, he's kicking himself he didn't think of using that scene in his SW reviews
Poe, how did you make it out of the crashed Tie Fighter?
this clip plays
scene!
A rare miss for the Drinker. Anyone who didn't get the movie should read Roadside Picnic. It doesn't really have anything to do with it but it might help appreciate this particular kind of sci-fi story.