Review of Annihilation (2018) by Joshua S — 08 Mar 2018

Jesus movie theaters are doomed. Well, perhaps not theaters themselves. I'm sure Disney will provide plenty of Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars movies to keep the lights on. No, I mean moviegoers are doomed. We are going to an age where any serious material, such as arthouse horror or hard science fiction will go to Netflix or other streaming services to die. Some point out that such services could save dying genres such as these, but time will surely tell.

In either case, we have another example of hard science fiction failing to connect - Annihilation. Annihilation is the story of an alien "invasion" that really isn't an invasion per-se, but an infection. After an alien anomaly lands near the southern US coast and continues to expand, the US government sends teams of soldiers and scientists to access the problem and stop it, if possible. One such all-female team includes our battered protagonist (Natalie Portman) whose husband has inexplicably come home after a year of no contact, devoid of personality and memory. If you think you have heard this story before, you would be correct...to a point. Annihilation takes bits and pieces of the serious science fiction of yesteryear with a dash of cosmic horror. Hence why it feels like a curious, but effective cross of The Andromeda Strain, Solaris, Alien, and Predator. What makes it even more interesting is how the infection is not necessarily hostile, it's merely remaking Earth's environment "in favor of its new matrix," as Mr. Spock would say. Natalie Portman is well known for being selective in her roles in recent years and it would be safe to say that she has gambled correctly. She anchors the picture convincingly and reminds us why Hollywood invested so much in her two decades ago. (Jesus I am getting old.) Jennifer Jason Leigh and Oscar Isaac are great as you'd expect, but I have to nod quite a bit to the other members of the crew (Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny) for making their mark in what is an essentially a pretty downbeat film. Alex Garland has impressed before with his work on Dredd and Ex Machina, and his commitment to steady shots and earnest story telling outweighs any temptation for cheap visual flair.

As for its financial failure, one could possibly attribute it to the very generic and admittedly awful trailer that advertised it. But it goes further than that. The studio, as usual, panicked that audiences would be too stupid to bother with such a movie and planned to dump it on Netflix shortly after its theatrical release - ensuring that much of its potential audience would not pay for something they could soon see at home for free. Perhaps even more glaringly, no attention was paid to its racially diverse, all-female cast. You would think that in our "woke" fuck-Trump-and-the-Patriarchy era, Paramount would fall all over themselves in advertising this. But here's the uncomfortable truth. Studio execs know what audiences refuse to admit to themselves - people only pay for schlock or middle-of-the-road entertainment. They want to see people who look like them blow shit up. And while that's perfectly understandable and even justified, (see my Black Panther review) it still means that movies in multiplexes are going to get dumber and dumber. And we can only blame ourselves.