Review of Annihilation (2018) by Ageeknamedbob — 28 Feb 2018

Edited from my blog review. ANNIHILATION is a divisive film. There are many who, once they realize the film isn’t exactly the alien action romp promised from the trailers, will check out early and not allow themselves to be on an original and thought-provoking journey. There are others who will get on this train, allowing the curiouser and curiouser ideas to start to sink in; but many of them will get off - or be stuck aboard unwillingly- as ANNIHILATION’s train throttled full steam ahead in a pile of weird akin to 2001 taking a ride on Willy Wonka’s Boat Tunnel Hellscape. Or if like me, will station themselves in the Engine car tossing every ounce of coal into the fire screaming MORE MORE MORE.

A careening train isn’t perhaps the best metaphor. ANNIHILATION is a slow burn, much like the novel by Jeff Vandermeer. The first of the three “Southern Reach” books is deeply unsettling, imbued with an unquiet dread as we follow The Biologist and her three teammates sent to explore the aforementioned Area X - an area where biology and evolution has gone haywire. And where-from no one returns the same. I loved it, and immediately ran out to buy the other two books - but felt the story of how Area X alters and maddens the women wouldn’t be very filmmable. Writer-director Alex Garland apparently thought so to. The film for ANNIHILATION is rather different than the source; keeping the very basics but changing just about everything else. But that’s fine. He carries over the tone perfectly, and taking the internal novel and making it visual. It is remarkable; feeling like the previous version but still being entirely it’s own thing.

This matches with the world of Area X. Inside The Shimmer, the film’s name for the purple glow creating the barrier (an example of visual changes in that the book version is invisible), evolution has gone haywire. Mutations of plants and animals live in this new ecosystem. Some gorgeous and harmless; some bone-chillingly terrifying. I don’t write about specifics in my reviews, but there is one sequence was so far the scariest of the year, perhaps of the last several. The sounds. THAT sound. Thus, reconfiguring of the book into the feature fits. Garland builds a more directed narrative, continually sending the crew deeper into Area X, themselves and their madness. Before I move on, those designs are grotesque and beautiful. Is is odd to call gore beautiful? If not, the disturbing beauty of some of the dead is one of the most impressive designs I’ve seen in ages. Gorehounds like me will appreciate several sequences but the disturbing nastiness isn't the focus although it does get a rise. Garland chose well with Director of Photography Rob Hardy. Hardy creates a lush world of evolutionary change and destruction; simultaneously engaging and endangering. As I sat in the theater marveling, I could hear Garland in my ear “Things are going to get weird, I’m going to make it weird.” I thank him for it. Garland has made a career of some of the best sci-fi /horror scripts: SUNSHINE, DREDD, 28 DAYS LATER…, and his directorial debut: EX MACHINA, my favorite film of 2015. Like EX MACHINA, Garland explores many questions, but doesn’t always give solid answers. But he finds the right balance; the audience is left pondering - but in the good way of eagerly waiting to find people to discuss and dissect. Garland trusts his audience to come along without having their hands held. There are many portions of the film, where a less trusting filmmaker would have continued on to inserted a particular shot or some explaining line to bring a concept home. Especially in the bonkers third act, which both brings everything to conclusion and goes full crazygonuts. Garland doesn't play it safe and I applaud him for it. It's too bad many will not, to be left cold by not having it all spoon-fed and wrapped in a bow. I’ve talked concept, but it wouldn’t have worked without a great cast to usher through Area X. The Biologist, played by Natalie Portman is the audience anchor, searching for answers for her husband Oscar Isaac’s reappearance 18 months after venturing into Area X. Like the other 4 women - Jennifer Jason Leigh’s aloof Psychologist, Gina Rodriguez's tough Paramedic, Tessa Thompson’s quiet Physicist, and Tuva Novotny’s Geologist; the Biologist is self-destructing and looking for something to hold on to. Many may say we don’t really get to know these women. I say that is much the point. This isn’t a trained squad; these are individuals there for their own internatal reasons. No one is open to fully bond; but instead to be torn apart and changed by their environment. Annihilation sticks with the audience. An appreciative audience will be as changed and altered as the characters. Garland made a new sci-fi masterpiece in EX MACHINA a; and he has done so again. Audiences will debate and and re-watch. Now if we can only get enough to see it that first time.