I've discovered my prime locations for finding movies to watch, at least on Netflix and Peacock: the "leaving soon" lists. Something about the knowledge that a movie is leaving a streaming platform and the potential convenience of watching said movie will decrease in the near future gives me that spark of motivation I need to go from "I should watch that sometime" to actually hitting Play.
One such movie that benefitted from its classification in that category is Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman. I didn't know much at all about the movie when I started it, but someone had mentioned it favorably on a podcast so the name rang a bell, and the preview image showed people looking worriedly at the corpse of a massive crocodile. So, monsters, accolades, and impending departure from a streaming service, the holy trinity for me when it comes to watching a movie.
Without giving up too much of the story, the movie mostly takes place in a mysterious and dangerous wilderness, inside a strange looking barrier where people and technology have been disappearing. The team finds... more than they bargained for? Or more realistically, exactly what they bargained for: danger and mystery.
The movie has a definite classic "prestige" movie feel, with lots of intense emotional moments to go along with some tense action and thrilling revelations. I actually found myself reminded of 2001: A Space Odyssey during the second half of the movie, but in a surprisingly unannoyed way. Those of you who know my movie opinions know that I find 2001 to be overly drawn out to the point of being boring...exceedingly boring. But while this movie definitely had some long scenes, the tension was such that I was thoroughly engaged the whole time.
Overall I found this to be an interesting and enjoyable watch. The final "twist" was fairly predictable, but still well-executed, and the whole last half-hour is a really great culmination to an already pretty good movie.
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