It’s fun when sci-fi is combined with grandly ambitious ideas – here, director Alex Garland explores what it means to be human by understanding our own cellular division at the most microscopic level – but Annihilation is less of a coherent vision then it is a familiar flick of a fight-to-survive with some psychedelic flair.
In Annihilation, the threat to humanity isn’t so much that of humans being wiped from the face of the Earth by extraterrestrials, but rather, extinction through mutations to DNA in which humans either cross-evolve with other life-forms, or be killed by those very creations. This wildly ambitious and heavily conceptual sci-fi flick begins with a crash course in explaining cellular make-up at its most basic level: as taught to us in a collegiate course setting by biologist Lena (Natalie Portman). She explains how the activity of endless division within the body – one becoming two, two becoming four, and so on and so forth – shows a fundamental error in our own evolution, in that we are programmed to divide rather than unify.
It’s a somewhat cynical premise, but as Lena’s military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) has been gone for a full year since being deployed on a covert mission, we concede that Lena has rightfully become hardened. That is, until Kane stumbles his way through the front door of their home one unexpected night, to Lena’s shock. From a military pop-up base that she and her husband are immediately whisked away to, Lena is informed by Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that her husband was part of an infantry unit called upon to enter a mysterious site called “The Shimmer.” At this location, evolution of all living matter refracts up to its bubbly orb and then back down on itself, making for crazy cross-pollinating life forms that include beautiful floral families and mutated killer bears. With Kane lying comatose, Lena decides to join a new unit who is prepping to enter The Shimmer to discover its origin. Of course, early scientific study turns into an all-out fight for survival as the team soon learns what threatens them inside.
While it strives to blend action and philosophy, ‘Annihilation’ is more exciting for the ideas that it attempts to bring forward rather than a complete, coherent story.
We’ve seen this sort of alien expedition mission movie before in films like Prometheus and even in Arrival, but this cast brings another dimension to this film. Natalie Portman returns from her Oscar-winning turn in 2016’s Jackie to re-assert herself as a big-screen action star, and while it may be more likely to believe Lena is an academic biologist rather then seven-year army veteran, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dr. Ventress is commanding all the same, lending more pathos then bravado in her position of power. And one of the most welcomed points of the movie is the all-female crew that moves into The Shimmer, comprised of Anya (Gina Rodriguez), Josie (Tessa Thompson), and Cass (Tuva Novotny). Writer and director Alex Garland once again brings brainy and ambitious ideas to the big screen, but whereas the power of his first feature film Ex Machina was in its intimacy and single location, the world of Annihilation is a world that requires great canvases, and the story is spread too thin to execute a coherent story.
Director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) is among the more ambitious sci-fi storytellers to bring challenging material to the big screen, and Annihilation offers a closer reading for those who read into it. The fact that teams of soldiers continue to enter The Shimmer, knowing that nobody has come back alive (the exception being a comatose Kane) is actually a comment about the flaw in human design. Lena also discovers a shared characteristic in the crew: they are all escaping vices and addictions that await them at home. Garland makes the connection that perhaps humans are destined to be self-destructive creatures.
Of course, this is a deeper reading that may penetrate audiences, and the rest of the movie offers enough serious and interesting world-building that it becomes a unique movie-watching experience. Annihilation ends with a wordless sequence that is stirring and captivating. While Garland expands on bringing his philosophy into action and grander visual storytelling, Annihilation is ultimately more exciting for the ideas that it brings forward than its execution.
115 min. ‘Annihilation’ is rated R for violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality. Now playing.
