Annihilation Review- No Spoilers

Graham Craycraft
Annihilation is the story of a mysterious force crashing to Earth and expanding its perimeter continuously. This perimeter is dubbed the Shimmer and only one person sent into the Shimmer has come back, so the government decides to send in a less militaristic and more scientific group of women to see if they can get to the bottom of this ever growing threat.

Annihilation is a 2018 Sci-fi Thriller with a healthy dose of drama mixed in. The movie is based on the book of the same name written by Jeff Vandermeer. Director and writer Alex Garland (Ex Machina) comes back to deliver another weird, thought provoking, and exhilarating ride. In Ex Machina Garland traps the viewer in the same mental and physical state as the main character. Annihilation brings that same claustrophobic atmosphere, but this time, the viewer is not trapped in a sealed bunker, instead they are trapped in the wide open and ever growing Shimmer.

The movie starts with an air of grief that is quickly turned into panic, then anticipation, then panic again. I was hesitant when I heard that Garland tries to keep the viewer as disoriented as the characters because that often falls completely flat, but he nailed it. At no point was my confusion a bad thing, and instead it only served to tie me into the story. We are traveling along with Portman in the morphing zone of the Shimmer. She carries herself strong and her acting gets better and better as the movie goes deeper into trying to understand the perplexity. The characters in the Shimmer begin to break down and mingle with the world around them on a cellular level, and Garland does that, in a sense, to the audience as well. He breaks us down and leaves little pieces of us throughout the movie through fear, hope, and utter shock.

Annihilation has a blend of fast and slow paced moments that mix well with an array of open shots where the viewer can see everything going on contrasted with dark choked off scenes where we are left in the dark much like the characters. As Portman reaches the Shimmer’s core, she is met with some harrowing facts as we knew she would be. And like Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character said, the more they found out about the Shimmer, the less they understood. Garland brought this Sci-fi spectacle to a height most movies of this genre just cannot do. Garland delivers another beauty and the plot created by Jeff Vandermeer is one of the best I’ve seen in a Sci-fi capacity.

On this blog, we have decided to begin to rate our movies, music, and television based on a scale of 100. I am proud to give this movie a solid 86%.

Comments

  1. Michael MomperFebruary 25, 2018 at 6:15 AM

    Great stuff- it looks like a really thought-provoking movie, and the unique visuals are really capturing my attention!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 28, 2018 at 11:25 PM

    Excellently written Graham. An 86% is certainly worth a look!

    ReplyDelete

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