First Hit: This film wasn’t suspenseful, interesting, or had characters the audience could care about.
It was hard for me to believe that a film with Natalie Portman (as Lena), Jennifer Jason Leigh (as Dr. Ventress), Oscar Isaac (Kane), and Gina Rodriguez (Anya) could not be full of drama and interest. However, not being able to care about the characters, I was hoping to care about their predicament.
Lena is a teaching physician in biology medicine after having a seven-year career in the military. It was in the military where she met her husband Kane who is a special ops person in the military.
Kane gets assigned to be sent into “The Shimmer” which is overtaking a place on the east coast of the United States. He's suppose to help the government understand what this thing is. The Shimmer came as a result of a meteorite hitting a lighthouse. Every group that goes into The Shimmer never comes back and The Shimmer is expanding.
However, after a year Kane does return and is in a sealed room being watched by the government and scientists. To find out what caused her husband to be in this comatose state Lena goes in to The Shimmer with Anya, Dr. Ventress and two others.
Only Lena gets to the goal, the lighthouse where the meteor struck.
The Shimmer wasn’t very interesting to look at. The story line and what Lena finds at the lighthouse isn’t interesting. The worst thing is that the characters aren’t interesting at all.
Portman probably did as she was told by the director and read the lines, but there wasn’t any depth to her character and I’m not sure where to put this problem because Portman is a great actress and usually delivers a strong character. Leigh was intense and gritty but, as with Portman’s character, I didn’t care and didn’t want to know anything more about her. Rodriguez was the most volatile character but there wasn’t anything around her character to have me care either. Isaac was no better than the rest of the characters, non-interesting. Alex Garland wrote and directed this mess.
Overall: This film is not worth seeing even though the names associated with the film are held in high regard.