Annihilation

It's a little known fact that I can confidently say that I am a fan of Alex Garland's work. So far in his career, he's headed screenwriting duties on fantastic films such as Sunshine, 28 Days Later, and the Dredd remake, and recently in 2015, he began his directorial career with the phenomenal Ex Machina. So, when the announcement was made that Garland would be creating an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation, you could say I was fairly excited.

Annihilation has all of the necessary tools to create an interesting sci-fi/horror thriller, something that will really make you sit on the edge of your seat. It's got a scary good story, detailing the events of a mysterious new zone off of the coast called, "The Shimmer," and everything that goes on inside. It's got a ragtag team of individuals that are all betrayed by their own shortcomings. It's got monsters that will send children crying into their nightmares. And it's got some really interesting twists and turns along the way. But evidence has shown us even the finest of ingredients can spell disaster.

Luckily for us, Annihilation doesn't spell disaster. It spells brilliance.

I'd like to be honest and say that I've never read the source material behind the film. So now that I've got that off of my chest, I can say that the story here can be a tad, "Oh I've seen this before," in the first half, but it really comes more into its own as things chug along. I saw a lot of parallels to 2016's Arrival, another sci-fi thriller with a somewhat similar context, but they slowly disappeared by the time the second part of the movie came around, revealing a quite interesting set-up and payoff. The mystery behind everything on screen leaves the audience glued in anticipation to see what might come next.

Alex Garland also deserves some recognition for pumping out yet another A+ film in his director career. Not only is the movie filled with gorgeous tracking shots and cuts, it's beautiful to look at, with tons of gorgeous colors off the spectrum, oddly colored foreground and background contrast, and clever mirroring shots.

If there's one area that's a little lacking in comparison, it would be casting. While the cast of characters in this film is pretty solid, with performances by Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh taking center stage, the rest of the cast seems a bit forgettable in comparison. I love Tessa Thompson but her role as the scientific, glasses-clad nerd just seems too cliche, and even Oscar Isaac can't get away with a shoddy southern accent. Not everything can be perfect.

As previously said, Annihilation takes the ingredients its given and makes a very tasty stew of mystery and sci-fi, and I like that. There's an uncertainty underlaid in the film, especially near the end, that gives me hope for a sequel (especially because there's more than one book in the series), but what we're given now is good enough. I'll give it a 9.1/10.