Annihilation review

ANNIHILATION:

A DAZZLING, HAUNTING, AND COMPLEX SCI-FI FILM THAT KEEPS YOU GUESSING ALL THE WAY THROUGH!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Natalie Portman in Alex Garland’s Annihilation

            Writer and director, Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Dredd, Ex-Machina) follows up the critically-acclaimed, Ex-Machina with the sci-fi horror film, Annihilation, based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. I have not read the book so I’m not sure how faithful this movie is to its source material, but as an enthusiast of Garland’s previous work on Ex-Machina, it’s a solid sci-fi thriller.

            Is it on par with Ex-Machina as a new sci-fi classic? No, but the movie is visually stunning, has a complex but fascinating story, and plenty of mystery and thrills. The film does drag, and the pacing is very slow, but it never bored me because I was invested in the story enough and wanted to know what was going to happen in the end, it’s kind of like watching a good Shyamalan movie in terms of its pacing.

            The film follows a woman named Lena (Natalie Portman-Black Swan, Thor, Jackie) who is a biologist sent on an expedition to Area X (Why is it always X?), a mysterious region within a national park codenamed the Shimmer. Three years prior an object struck a lighthouse within the park and the Shimmer started to manifest shortly afterwards, causing all sorts of mysterious things to happen.

            Lena and her expedition team, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh-Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Anomalisa, The Hateful Eight), physicist, Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson-Selma, Creed, Thor: Ragnarok), anthropologist, Cass Shepherd (Tuva Novotny-Dear Alice, Eat Pray Love, The King’s Choice), and paramedic, Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez-Jane the Virgin, Deepwater Horizon, Ferdinand) venture into the Shimmer to uncover the truth behind it and hopefully save the life of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac-Inside Llewyn Davis, Ex-Machina, Star Wars franchise), who is dying from an unknown illness. However, what lurks in the Shimmer may be too terrifying for the team to comprehend and have a much bigger purpose than they expected.

            Overall, Annihilation is an ambitious sci-fi film that’s well-acted, visually stunning, and has a story that leaves you pondering after the film ends. This can be either a selling point or a turn-off point, it’s not a straight-up horror movie but more of a character study and analysis on themes of life, purpose, and the unknown.

            If you’ve seen the trailers thinking it’s a scary movie with jump scares, gore, and creepy imagery all throughout the film, it’s not at all like that. It’s like seeing The Witch or the two Blade Runner movies expecting an over-the-top horror or action movie but really, they’re very talkative movies that take their time telling the story and have more of a mystery tone.

            There are scary moments and even gory imagery but they’re not the focus of the movie, the focus is where it should be, on the characters and moving the story along. Unless you’re doing something new or completely insane with your scares and/or giving a fresh take on old tropes, it’s easy for me to lose interest in scary movies.

            This movie doesn’t lose my interest, I was invested all the way through even when moments felt slow and dragged on. Mostly because of Natalie Portman’s performance, she’s giving it her all and always makes an impression, she’s come a long way since the Star Wars prequels.

            Though I will admit, the supporting cast aren’t developed that well, Oscar Isaac’s barely in the movie and there’s not much time devoted to the rest of the cast besides Portman. I get it, Natalie Portman’s your big star here and you want to get people in the theater, but you can take a break from her once in a while and establish the side characters a little better.

            I also felt the ending or “twist” was on the weak side, you had all this build-up and suspense but there wasn’t much of a payoff. Remember The Sixth Sense and how it had a slow pace but the twist at the end completely blew everyone away? I was expecting something along the lines of that movie and came out of the movie not mind-blown but scratching my head and saying “Wait, what?”.

            Had this movie gone for a Sixth Sense style ending or even something like Arrival, this could have been as amazing as Ex-Machina. But as is, it’s a well-made movie that could have used a better payoff, hopefully Paramount’s next release, A Quiet Place fixes that.