ANNIHILATION

For some film buffs Alex Garland is known for his work writing Danny Boyle directed films such as “Sunshine” and “28 Days Later”, not to be confused with “127 Hours” which was written & directed by Boyle. Garland also adapted Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go” starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightly and Andrew Garfield as clones. Definitely one to add to your queue if you haven’t seen it.  But most movie-goers only started paying attention to Alex Garland, when he wrote & directed the extraordinary “Ex Machina” (2014) starring Alicia Vikander as a Fembot. Now, he’s adapted the first book in Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” trilogy, “Annihilation”, “Authority”, and “Acceptance”.

This female driven Sci-fi/Thriller stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh (who for me will now & forever be known as “The Domergue” from “The Hateful Eight”), Tuva Novotny, Tessa Thompson (“Creed”) and Gina Rodriguez (“Jane The Virgin”), all play scientists/doctors with assorted knowledge and degrees who volunteer to go on a mission to find out the source of a shimmering effect surrounding an American forest inside a National Park. The military is aware the effect started when a meteor hit a lighthouse, but every team sent in to investigate never returns. These women realize they are on a possible suicide mission, but for various reasons have little to lose. In fact, Garland says his premise over-laying VanderMeer’s novel is an exploration of what makes us self-destruct.

The fact that the main characters are women, however, plays no part in Garland’s analysis of self-destruction, nor does the world they inhabit inside the shimmer; they could have just as easily been a group of men or mixed male/female and the story & plot would play out the same. I can’t decide if I like that, or would prefer their femininity play a part in the narrative.

I would say the over-all feel and pace of the film is very reminiscent of Villeneuve’s “Arrival”, until sudden moments of terror. What really makes this film shine are the visual effects, “The Shimmer” has a way of taking over nature in ways that are artistic and magical, trippy even, and distorting other things in ways that are horrific and completely unnatural.

If you are a fan of Jeff VandeMeer’s novel you may not be happy that the movie often goes in its own direction. Garland however says, when adapting the screenplay (with VndeMeer’s approval) he did not go back and reread “Annihilation”, instead he wrote it from his memory of the novel to give it a dream-like quality. Furthermore, although the movie is set in a North American coastal area like Florida, they dressed an English forest outside London and filmed most scenes there to further give the movie a distorted otherness for the production design.

I have a love/hate relationship with Natalie Portman, sometimes like in “Garden State”, “Black Swan” “A Tale of Love and Darkness” I think she’s captivating, then other times, like all the “Star Wars” prequels, “Thor”, “Jackie” and now “Annihilation”, I think she’s terribly wooden and wearisome. Otherwise, I very much recommend “Annihilation”, it’s not as compelling as “Ex Machina” but definitely worth seeing in the theater. The box office will of course determine if the rest of the trilogy gets made into films, but don’t look for it to be directed or written by Alex Garland who has stated he’s a one and done kinda filmmaker.

Tinsel & Tine the Large Association of Movie Blogs (aka the LAMb) rating: 4 outta 5

Allied Philly Paramount Pictures Netflix Skydance, Media DNA Films, Scott Rudin Productions