Annihilation: 10 Minutes of Sadness, 5 Minutes of Confusion, Then Netflix

"I got some new blue-rays for Christmas," my date says.  "Take your pick."

Ok, this is tricky. The movie can't be too long, or it will postpone the end-of-date trip to the bedroom.  It can't be too serious or depressing, or it will put a damper on the date.  And it can't be too complex, or we won't be able to talk...or kiss.

The Black Klansman.  A black guy joined the Ku Klux Klan? Sounds too serious/depressing.

Battle of the Sexes.  About a tennis match between Billie Jean King, who everyone thought was gay in the 1970s, and some guy.  Gross.

The Shape of Water.  Water doesn't have a shape; it fills whatever container you put it in.  Sounds like a complex artsy piece.

Annihilation.  The cover art shows a team of space explorers  -- and the blurb says something about an energy field that threatens to destroy the universe. A space ship in the far reaches of the galaxy!  Just the thing!

The only problem is, it looks like the explorers are all women, so there won't be any beefcake to rev our engines in preparation for the bedroom.

Still, it beats The Shape of Water.  I choose Annihilation, and my date puts it into his blue ray player.

Wait -- this isn't outer space.  It's some college in our world, where a professor of cellular biology named Lena (Natalie Portman) gives a lecture on cancerous tumors and mourns her dead husband.  She rejects a party invitation and goes home to paint the bedroom and mourn her dead husband some more while a depressing song plays.

"Helplessly Hoping," by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

All of it.  Every single verse.  Every single word.  While we watch her paint.

No scene about the paint drying?

Then the husband, or his ghost, shows up, and instead of being surprised or happy or saying "I thought you were dead,"  Lena chats with him normally. 

We don't know what they are saying, because the song is still bleating.  But they hold hands through a water glass.

This isn't at all what the cover blurb promised.

I grab my cell phone and look up the plot synopsis on Wikipedia:  Lena and her husband Kane went on a four month expedition to investigate "The Shimmer," an electromagnetic field.  Now Kane is dying, and they don't remember anything that happened during the four months.

Wait -- what I'm watching has absolutely nothing to do with the plot synopsis.

No wonder this was one of the biggest bombs of 2018.  It's about mourning a dead husband who might not be dead, but probably is.

It's very risky to walk out of a movie, or turn it off, during a first date.  But I can't stand any more of this dreck.  I start kissing and groping my date, hoping to distract him.

It works.  We get up and head toward the bedroom, leaving Lena to mourn her dead husband in peace.

Are there at least some hunks wandering around?

Of 11 named characters, only 3 are men:

1.David Gyasi (top photo) as Daniel, the professor who invites Lena to the party. All that beefcake wasted on two lines.

2. Oscar Isaac (photo 2) as Kane, the dead or not dead husband.  Except he's clean-shaven.

3. Benedict Wong (photo 3) as Lomax.  A good alien name: "I am Lomax from...France."



Then there's Ben Collaco as an unnamed scientist.

















And Matthew Simpson as an unnamed special ops agent.

I wouldn't know.  I just lasted through the first 15 minutes of bedroom-painting and confusion.