An OnDemand viewing on June 22nd in Chicago. Andrew Garland directed and wrote the screenplay for the follow-up of 2015's Ex Machina.
This sci-fi thriller is about an anomaly called the "shimmer" inhabiting some swamp lamps around the Maryland shoreline(?). Natalie Portman plays Lena, a biologist from Johns Hopkins who husband Kane (Oscar Isaacs), a special forces soldier, has been missing for a year and is presumed dead. Kane shows up at the house one day but he seems off. After coughing up blood, the ambulance is overtaken by black SUVs. Lena then wakes up in a government facility. Dr. Ventress gives Lena some much needed exposition about the "shimmer" and that her husband is the only person to come back alive out of the numerous expeditions sent inside.
Sure enough Lena is part of the next team going into the "shimmer" along with Dr. Ventriss, a psychologist; Tessa, a physicist; Cass, a scientist and Anya, a paramedic who's just crazy enough to go on a mission like this and also the resident tough chick. While in the "shimmer" they find some crazy sh*t. One by one the team starts to get picked off. Cass is killed by a bear, Anya goes crazy and eventually gets killed by the bear that killed Cass. Tessa figures out what is happening in the "shimmer," the DNA of everything inside the "shimmer" is mutating, including them. She then becomes a piece of flora.
Lena makes her way to the center of the "shimmer," the lighthouse where she meets up with Dr. Ventress. Lena discovers a video of her husband that kind of explains somethings. Lena sets off a chain reaction and makes it back to the base.
The film is based on a book of the same name by Jeff Vandermeer from 2014. Obviously I never read the book but the film seems to borrow a lot from Avatar, John Carpenter's The Thing, Imposter and even Stargate. This is an interesting picture but it doesn't have the build up that Ex Machina had. Ex Machina had a plot that made people think about something that could happen in the not too distant future, sexbots! That seems to be absent in Annihilation. It's not a bad film but it seems to drag on a bit. The run time is 115 minutes but it moves too slow at times, there were probably 8-12 minutes that could have cut without damaging the narrative.
I liked that an all female team goes in a succeeds where the dudes have failed. I do wonder if Lena would have been allowed to go on the mission if she didn't just happen have a useful profession that would be helpful, though it was the physicist that figured it out. Would she have been allowed to go if she was a tax attorney? Dr. Ventress reminded me of Col. O'Neil from Stargate in the "I've got nothing to live for in this world therefore it's a one way trip for me" cliche. The ending didn't seem too original to me either.
The film did receive an 87% Rotten Tomatoes rating but the film so far as under performed at the box office with a $32 million gross against a $40 million budget. Solid visual effects and really good acting. But the film moves too slow and just didn't seem original. Garland is still a director that I want to follow and this is only his second feature.
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