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Annihilation is a 2018 fantasy adventure about a biologist who signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition where the laws of nature don’t apply.
I’m going to do my best to help explain this without spoiling it. Many people are going to think that the trailers are misleading, but don’t let that distract you. I for one am glad that the marketing team is making you think you are seeing a certain genre, because if they told you the truth, you wouldn’t have much interest in seeing it in the first place. I’m not here to say that the ads are flat out lies, they just wisely omit certain key plot elements, and I plan to do the same with this review, but still give clues about it as well.
So let’s begin with the basic plot. Lena (Natalie Portman) is a biologist whose husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) has disappeared for several months. This makes Lena frantic. She can’t do anything or have any social life at all. A coworker asks her out to a Bar B Q, but she would rather stay home and paint their room. Then all of a sudden, Kane shows back up in her life, but he is very different from when he left. He looks like Kane, and sounds like him, but Lena knows that there is something not quite right with him. One night, he has a violent seizure, and on the way to the hospital, the ambulance is stopped by secret government types that you would find in episodes of The X Files, and they haul Kane and Lena away. Lena wakes up and discovers that she is now part of an expedition with other scientists to explore this area where nature has been changing. The last eleven times, it was men who went in to this environment (known as Area X), but this time it is with women. Their task is to explore and take notes of their surroundings and find out what effects this strange aura called ‘The Shimmer’ has on it.
The other scientists who join Lena are Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Cass Shepard (Tuva Novotny). I forget each of their professions, except for Dr. Ventress, who is the psychologist. I know in one scene they each mention what they are, but it’s never brought up again, so it really doesn’t matter. Lena notices that Area X seems to be duplicating certain plants and even some of the animals are kind of crossbred with others. As they get further in their investigations, they begin seeing things that may or may not be there, and their sanity is put to the test.
Annihilation was based on the book of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. Director Alex Garland’s adaptation has the same core ideals, but the way the story was told was way different. In the novel, we are reading the events as if Lena was writing a journal about her experience in Area X. Another huge difference between the book and the movie is that none of the characters have a name. They are only called by their profession and nothing else. The book does have a bit more tension between the women, and although the movie does have really good moments, the book just fleshes out those characters a bit more. But of course that goes without saying. Movies are always going to be different from the source material.
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There are elements of 2001 A Space Odyssey, Solaris, The Thing, Under The Skin, Her, Species and The Island of Dr, Moreau all throughout this movie and I, for the most part, enjoyed it. Alex Garland’s follow up to Ex Machina is a something fans of cerebral science fiction are going to love analyzing. The general public, however, I feel will find the movie to be interesting towards the end, but become totally confused and perhaps dismiss the whole thing. While the ads would have you think that this is a thriller of some kind, the real fear is when you find out what Area X and the Shimmer are actually doing to the people who visit it.
Annihilation has some great visual effects and the cast is good but I did not fully love it. That is my fault for having read the book first. It’s not fair to compare books to movies because they are different mediums. I know if Alex Garland did copy the structure of the book, everyone would just say that it’s copying other movies more bluntly than I just mentioned. Key word being copy. It is one I plan on seeing again and getting new ideas after each viewing and sometimes that is the best thing about movies. Getting different perspectives. My thoughts on this will be forever changing, just like how Area X and The Shimmer changes its inhabitants.