Annihilation

Be forewarned, unless you’re on board for some wacky sci-fi shenanigans, this one might be too weird for the average moviegoers’ tastes.

Loosely based on the novel of the same name, Annihilation follows an all female group of military scientists as they enter what is termed “The Shimmer”, where odd, unnatural creatures and slightly off normal environmental mutations have taken hold, much to the surprise and confusion of everyone involved. Consisting of biologist Lena (Natalie Portman), psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), paramedic Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), physicist Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), and geologist Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), the group enters the anomaly on edge, their guns drawn and minds sharp. But there’s a catch: only one person has ever come back from the various missions sent into “The Shimmer”, a soldier named Kane (Oscar Isaac), who just so happens to be the husband of Lena, but when he finally did return, he wasn’t exactly the same, far from it in fact. Now with the answers they seek deep inside the middle of “The Shimmer” and a new, fascinating and dangerous ecosystem surrounding them, Lena and crew must survive long enough to figure out what’s going on, or vanish without a trace like so many others before them.

First things first, I never read the novel that this film is based on and apparently director Alex Garland only read the manuscript at the time he was hired to adapt the book, so as far as I understand this was a weird mash-up of original ideas and straight from the source inspiration. That being said, the main sticking point of this film, at least in my eyes, is that even though it’s clear that Garland didn’t adhere fully to the source material, there are signs that point to a slight creative stranglehold in his scripting and direction that can only be attributed to adapting the book itself. There’s a whole lot of dazzling special effects and plenty of tension and build up, but on the whole, I kept wishing that this were a straight adaptation or a completely original tale, the amalgam of both just simply doesn’t do what the filmmakers seem to have intended, and the film most definitely suffers from it.

And while that might be an issue in the overall feel and flow of the film, everything else is pretty spot on otherwise. The casting is great all around and even though the dialogue and some character beats seem forced or just plain dumb, there’s enough visual eye candy and slight mystery to the proceedings that for most of the runtime this film is relatively consistent and interesting. Then comes the third act, something that you either dive into and embrace or just stare at the screen in a confused sort of daze. I was the former and loved what Garland and his crew were doing with it, but as with most sci-fi films, there’s a threshold for how much an audience can grasp and understand, and I fear that the ending was exactly that. Mix in some lofty ideas and leading scenes that seem to crumble under their own visual and thematic weight, and you have a film that should have been better at its core rather than just simply impressive around the edges.

Better in theory than in its actual execution, Annihilation is a beautifully directed, shot, and acted film, but pretty visuals and a solid cast can only do so much when the script seems to run out of its grand, sweeping ideas about halfway through. There’s enough here to like, and most of it is definitely cool to see, but it’s not enough to hold you throughout, especially with a third act that might very well turn off everyone who doesn’t “get” it or understand exactly what the hell is going on. This is not a bad film by any means, but I think that if the filmmakers weren’t so beholden to the source material and preoccupied with basing this story on what came before, the final product would have turned out even better. So as it stands, this one is a must see for genre fans, but not for many others.