Annihilation Review

From the writer and director of "Ex Machina." When that line showed up 30 seconds into the official trailer, I was sold. I didn't need to see anything else. I wanted this movie right then. On paper, "Ex Machina" was simply another movie about artificial intelligence that we've seen a hundred times. We get it, Hollywood. Artificial intelligence is bad and unknown technology shouldn't be trusted because it's going to destroy the world. But dang Alex Garland did such an excellent job at constructing that movie. I was glued to the screen for every second of the movie and when the ending came around, my jaw practically hit the floor in shock. The movie stuck with me for the whole year and wound up pretty high on my list of favorite movies at the end of the year. So now you're telling me that Alex Garland has a follow-up project that is also a futurist sci-fi of sorts? Yeah, sign me up. If you also loved "Ex Machina" like I did, just close this review and go see "Annihilation." It's more Alex Garland magic, proving this this guy has the potential to be a sci-fi master if he continues to make movies like "Ex Machina" and "Annihilation." I'm not going to spoil the movie in this review, but I have to talk about and the less you know about it going in, the better your experience will be.

The movie actually starts off with a bit of a skewed timeline. We jump around from past, present and future without the movie informing us what part of the timeline we are on. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to put it together once you get going, but it does set the tone for the rest of the movie and lets you know that your brain has to be active in this one. If you're expecting to relax and watch a brainless sci-fi action flick with a group of girls fighting a bunch of monsters in a mysterious area and you're not willing to put in the brainpower required to understand what's going on, you're going to get lost really quickly and you're going to walk out of the movie disappointed in how "boring" and "meaningless" this movie is. Words I put in quotation marks because I think it's insulting to use those words to describe this movie, yet a lot of people have. This movie got a C on cinemascore and caries a nearly miserable 65 percent on the audience section of Rotten Tomatoes, a disappointingly common trend when it comes to these smaller scale, unconventional horror/sci-fi films that I really love. The 86 percent critics score and the 7.9 on IMDb will thankfully clue some people in that this is a movie worth seeing as those scores indicate general favorability.

I think the biggest problem with certain groups of people came thanks to the marketing. I can't blame Paramount for wanting to earn money with this movie instead of honing in on the art house crowd. They leaned heavily on the goodwill that Alex Garland gave audiences with "Ex Machina," then advertised the movie as a horror film with a monster lurking around, immediately releasing it in 2,000 theaters on its first weekend, which in turn attracted a bit of a different crowd then "Ex Machina" did when A24 opened it in just four theaters, then slowly expanded it after strong reviews. Paramount's tactics attracted the mainstream audiences who were expecting a generic horror film, thus earning it a C cinemascore when they were treated to something quite different. A24's tactics attracted the correct audience who appreciates these unconventional films, which explains why it's nearly universally praised by those who actually saw it. Because those who actually saw it knew what they were getting going into it and thus appreciated the high quality product. So let that be a message to you right off the bat with "Annihilation." If you wanted a jump-scare riddled horror film or a brainless monster movie, do us all a favor and just skip this movie.

Personally this movie grabbed my attention from the opening scene and never let go. I don't want to give away too many plot details, but the extremely basic plot here is that Natalie Portman plays a biology professor at a university whose husband, played by Oscar Isaac, has gone missing on a certain military mission for about a year now. When her husband randomly shows up again one day, but is extremely messed up, she decides that she owes it to him to go investigate this thing they call the shimmer with a group of other girls with various other levels of expertise. The shimmer has just showed up and is slowly expanding, but no one knows what it's all about because, while lots of things go in, nothing comes out. Except for maybe Natalie Portman's husband, but he's all kinds of messed up. And that's all I'm going to give you. The real plot of this movie is way more complex, but I don't want to talk about it. And you shouldn't go searching it out. Don't jump on wikipedia to read the plot synopsis. Don't watch the trailer for the movie if you haven't seen it as in hindsight it gives away too much. Don't go listen to the soundtrack because the track titles reveal certain details about the film. Go in knowing as little as possible about this movie.

If you give yourself that opportunity of not knowing much about this, the movie will take you on a crazy journey. For clarification purposes, this is not a horror movie. The trailer insinuates a monster lurking around that they are chasing, and even throws in a few jump scares. That's not what this movie is. This is also not an action movie. Sure, it's a group of girls walking in armed with military guns and the trailer also shows them using said guns, but that's not what this movie is. This is a sci-fi movie. And it's a very unique sci-fi movie with a premise that I don't think I've seen much at all. Yes, with "Ex Machina," Alex Garland took a used and abused sci-fi premise and turned it into a fascinatingly refreshing film. But in this movie, Alex Garland takes a best-selling novel that does something completely different and adapts into a beautiful, captivating. Two things that the movie relies rather heavily on, that even haters of the film will agree are amazing, are the stunning visual effects and the mesmerizing score. Instead of letting you wander aimlessly, the movie gives you something great to look it in this very unique area and the score leaves you unsettled so that you are not allowed to be bored, even when on the surface it appears little is happening.

The best comparisons I have for this movie are a few other mildly obscure, unconventional films. The first one to come to my mind was "Under the Skin," a movie that if I were to describe to you would sound gross and wrong, but when you experience it, and do your absolute best to turn on your thinking cap to analyze what's going on, you'll hopefully discover a very layered sci-fi film with a ton to unpack and a lot of fascinating themes that the movie chooses to let you discover on your own rather than shoving them down your throat. Another movie that came to my mind was "The Neon Demon." Although this little film isn't quite the same genre, it's more drama with a touch of horror rather than sci-fi, the way that "The Neon Demon" chooses to use visuals and sound to set the stage for the movie is rather similar to "Annihilation." "The Neon Demon" uses a captivating color palate that makes the film gorgeous to look at and has a mesmerizing score that makes even the most basic moment of the film very captivating. Like "Under the Skin," the themes in "The Neon Demon" are also quite strong, yet aren't shoved down your throat, thus making you have to spend some time thinking about what you just watched, thus continuing to reward you long after the fact.

If me bringing up "Under the Skin" and "The Neon Demon" gets you excited to see "Annihilation," then me and you can now become best friends because these are the types of movies that I really love. "Under the Skin" is from 2013 while "The Neon Demon" is from 2016. Yet despite being five and two years old respectively, neither movie has left my mind since me watching them, giving me the illusion that I watched both for the first time a few weeks ago. I have the feeling that "Annihilation" will be the same way, but that's more of a prediction than anything as we'll see where I stand in two years from now. If instead of being excited with these comparisons, you are instead looking at the screen with a blank stare, then allow me to give a couple of mainstream comparisons that aren't the best comparisons, but will get the point across well enough. First is Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival." That's a sci-fi movie from the other year that had me hooked from the start thanks to it's captivating score and mysterious angle. While the movies are very different in premise, there's a lot of parallels to both. The other comparison is to be taken very lightly. They're nothing alike, but in terms of the mental challenge, I'm throwing out Christopher Nolan's "Inception."

Given that "Inception" is one of my favorite films of all-time, don't take this comparison to mean that I think "Annihilation" is just as good. But if you go to "Inception" hoping for a relaxing, summer popcorn flick, you'll quickly be thrown off guard as "Inception" requires you to focus and pay attention. If you turn away or leave to go to the bathroom without pausing it, you're going to be extremely lost and may never recover if you don't go back and re-watch what you missed. With "Inception," Nolan decides not to just spell everything out for his audience when all is said and done, but would rather have them figure it out on your own. It's the type of movie that will force you to sit down with your friends and spend hours discussing what the heck you just saw, which will then cause you to go back and revisit it, causing you to then go back and re-watch it, which causes you to pick up more details with each new visit. Again, it's not the perfect comparison because "Annihilation" is not even close to being the same type of movie in terms of genre or premise, which is why I especially like my "Under the Skin" comparison better, but both "Inception" and "Annihilation" are mentally challenging films that require much thought and a lot of discussion to figure out.

With that, I'm going to finish up this review. If this felt extremely vague, then I was successful in my approach. There's a lot to discuss here, but this is the type of film where I really want people to go in knowing nothing about this, which is why I spent most of my time talking about other movies that are similar in style instead of giving details about this one. And I don't want to touch the ending of this movie, but I do want to vaguely throw out there that this is based off a best-selling novel by Jeff VanderMeer and that novel is the first book in a trilogy called the Southern Reach Trilogy. If you pick up on what I'm getting at there, then good. If not, then so be it. I'll explain later. And after you've seen this movie, ask me about the two sequences in the film that I don't think I'll ever forget for various reasons. Then give me your theory on what this all means. I'd love to hear it. As far as a grade for this movie, that's kinda tricky. Numbers don't mean anything and there isn't a number that will really do this justice, so I almost want to throw a wrench into this and not give you a number, especially since I feel like letting this marinate for a few months and getting back to you. But for the sake of me liking "Ex Machina" a bit more, I'll play things safe and award "Annihilation" a 9/10.