Review of Annihilation (2018) by Rick K — 07 Mar 2018

Suspenseful, intriguing, and a breath of fresh air, Annihilation proves that Alex Garland's Ex-Machina success was not a fluke.

Natalie Portman shines as biologist/professor Lena, a character who has nothing to lose and is therefore free from the fear of death that affects the average person. Portman plays Lena with a curious intellect, believable traumatization, and a cold aloofness; there isn't really any reason to like her character, and yet you still find yourself rooting for her to succeed. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays an even quieter and more remote/emotionally hidden psychologist, delivering some of the starkest yet most thought-provoking lines. Tessa Thompson plays a shy physicist, Gina Rodriguez plays a cynical paramedic with some humor, Tuva Novotny plays a geologist, and Oscar Isaac plays Portman's husband, Kane, who is always not saying something. A simple criticism that can be made about Annihilation is its lack of character development. There is a familiar pattern of one by one they all get picked off until there is one left, and no matter how grippingly the movie does that, the overall lack of any investment or development of a character outside Lena cannot be overlooked. We learn a bit about Jennifer Jason Leigh's character, but little about anyone else. The rest of the crew is portrayed as having personal reasons for going on what is essentially a suicide mission, but this is barely explored. The second half of Annihilation quickly becomes the Natalie Portman show when it really doesn't need to be.

However, Annihilation is a mind-bending and sometimes challenging film with a little bit of everything for each type of audience member. The visual effects are grandiose, the movie is full of psychedelic imagery that looks like it came from Wonderland; the only criticism I have of the film's visuals is its incessant calls for lens flares, which cheapened too many shots that didn't need them. There are horror elements as well in the film. These are not too scary for those easily frightened, but several scenes are extremely tense and some images will stick with you beyond the theater. The dialogue, while not as interesting or provocative as in Ex-Machina, is still sharply written and thought-provoking. The score does an excellent job at setting the atmosphere within the shimmer; it helps you feel the danger in certain scenes more intensely and the nerve-racking ending in particular is heightened by it. Speaking of the ending, I feel this is where audiences will be divided. The last 20 minutes or so take the film to a whole new level, the craziness and wow factor of the whole thing multiplies. While watching I wanted to know what was going on, but I was too busy screaming in my head "What is happening!?" I realized later there wasn't much to analyze and the last shot of the film wasn't hard to see coming either. I believe the whole sequence was meant to represent the movie's central theme of self-destruction, but it could have been more. I'm not disappointed with how Annihilation ended, but I can't say I was fully satisfied either. When a movie has such a great build-up and you become engrossed in the plot, curious to see what the characters discover next about the shimmer and what's inside it, it can become difficult to keep the wheels tightly fastened to the vehicle when racing to the end.

Annihilation is a good sci-fi film with some staggering imagery. It captivated me, had me on the edge of my seat, and left me wanting more. But its conclusion, coupled with its shallow supporting characters, kept Annihilation from reaching the level of great sci-fi (cough...cough...Blade Runner 2049).