Annihilation (2018) **

“Annihilation,” by writer/director Alex Garland (“Ex Machina” “28 Days Later” “Never Let Me Go”), is pretty good science fiction up to a certain point. That point occurs about 20 seconds into the film, which opens with a meteor burning through the atmosphere and striking the ground near a lighthouse. It's decent stuff. Then we switch over to biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) giving an obnoxiously pretentious pre-med lecture, and the film is really all downhill from there.

Lena, we learn, is mourning the loss of her missing-in-action, military husband, Kane. Then, mysteriously, Kane shows up at their house, disoriented and sick. On the way to the hospital, Lena and Kane are kidnapped and taken to a government facility near the lighthouse where the asteroid landed. From a remarkably forthcoming psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), we learn that for 3 years, a shimmery force field has been slowly spreading out from the site. They can't see or detect anything beyond “the shimmer,” and every team sent in to investigate has simply disappeared. Kane is the first person to come back out, and he has no memory of anything, and seems to be dying.

Lena volunteers to join the psychologist and 3 other female scientists on a mission into the shimmer. There, they experience time disorientation and progressive mental deterioration as they explore an apocalyptic landscape of beautiful and dangerous genetic mutations.

There's no reason this couldn't be a fun concept, but with “Annihilation,” a talented director and cast somehow managed to create a complete dud. First and foremost, Lena sucks all the joy out of whatever room she's in. Even in flashbacks of her life before Kane disappeared, their relationship seems mostly stale and miserable. Jennifer Jason Leigh's character isn't exactly brimming with personality, either. Tessa Thompson is talented and gorgeous, but she's totally wasted here.

Then there's the “science” in this film. I was okay with the mixing of plant and animal DNA going on inside the shimmer, and I wish they had explored those possibilities more. I was mostly willing to go along with the ridiculous footage of dividing cells that Lena views through her portable microscope. But when Thompson's character explains that the shimmer is “diffracting” genes the same way it diffracts light and radio waves, I was ready to bail.

What you basically have here is a less trashy version of the movie "Species," and that's not a complement. “Species” also wasted some great actors on a ridiculous film, but at least it had all those Natasha Henstridge nude scenes. “Annihilation” could have used some of that, assuming that a better script, acting, and direction weren't an option. This film actually got a lot of good reviews, but I think it's a bore. That meteor in the opening scene is the high point.

2 stars out of 5