Annihilation (2018) [Blu-ray]
Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline: Fear What's Inside

When four women -- a psychologist, a surveyor, an anthropologist and a biologist -- embark on a covert expedition into an area sealed off by the government for decades, they find a wilderness where the laws of nature don't pertain.

Lena, a biologist and former soldier, joins a mission to uncover what happened to her husband inside Area X - a sinister and mysterious phenomenon that is expanding across the American coastline. Once inside, the expedition discovers a world of mutated landscape and creatures, as dangerous as it is beautiful, that threatens both their lives and their sanity.

Storyline: A biologist's husband disappears. She puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and a linguist.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, May 20, 2018 Alex Garland, writer of the wonderful Sunshine and director of the critically acclaimed Ex Machina, has tackled his most ambitious project yet in Annihilation. But is it his best? The thought-provoking Sci-Fi film unites a pair of StarWars icons as a couple whose lives are forever changed when they individually enter into an alien environment that is growing, expanding, and evolving right here on Earth. The film is based on a novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. The story is sort of like Under the Dome meets Event Horizon, a meshing of two intriguing ideas that allow for a dark tale of human nature and evolution under entrapped duress on one hand while capturing some gory action and excitement on the other.

Lena (Natalie Portman) is a professor of biology with a military background. Her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), also military, has been gone for over a year, having never returned from a classified mission. She's struggling to move on with her life, but her world is at once both turned upside down and returned right side up when Kane walks through her door. Unfortunately, his health quickly deteriorates and en route to the hospital he and Lena are rerouted to a secretive military facility near what Lena comes to know as "The Shimmer," a small corner of the world that is being taken over, and biologically altered, by a mysterious alien force. With Kane in a coma, Lena agrees to join a team with the goal of entering The Shimmer and reaching a lighthouse within, which was the original point of impact for the alien takeover. It's a dangerous mission with a low probability of success; none who have entered, outside of Kane, have ever returned. Inside, Lena and her team discover a world that's equally amazing and deadly, holding many secrets and many perils that threaten not only their world and their bodies, but also their minds.

Annihilation is a methodical motion picture. It is quick to build intrigue and intensity but slow to expand on either. Garland rushes the viewer into a tale of character curiosity and alien environmental alteration, hinting at several of the story's critical developments within the first few minutes but slowing down to explore the significance of most every primary and support construct along the way. The movie's linear narrative is interrupted by flashback on several occasions, as Lena's time in The Shimmer forces her to reexamine her life and consider her fate. Amongst several moments of high intensity action and stomach-churning violence, as the film and characters survey the beauty and bastardizations that have quickly evolved in The Shimmer, Annihilation explores some very interesting ideas and introduces subtle hints of deeper themes amongst the more foundational journey into madness and the unknown.

It is perhaps that Garland has created a world that is physically familiar and aesthetically pleasing but also mentally maddening and oftentimes crudely horrific that keeps the audience drawn to the world of The Shimmer, engaged in the story and concerned for the almost certain deterioration of the group that enters is deceptively dark clutches. That juxtaposition is a powerful tool that the film employs in nearly every sequence, allowing individual shots and longer scenes to build towards moments of not always narrative surprise or technical ingenuity but certainly the world's, and by extension the story's, next evolution. Garland's world is fantastic, but it never looks or feels grandiose. It's careful in what it reveals, strict in its depiction of how the alien entity has reshaped the world. It's very grounded in its fantastic constructs, which are sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly woven into the narrative's greater fabric. The film is bold in many of its choices but not so bold, usually, to cheapen any of the critical visual or narrative components that define it.

With that in mind, the film suffers through a few drawbacks that render it a less-than-perfect Sci-Fi film. At the same time that it truly excels in some ways, Annihilation plods through a handful of hackneyed ideas and trite tries at visual and aural sophistication, sometimes at the expense of both narrative structure and flow. For as wonderfully realized as the core production may be, for as intense as several scenes play, for as generally strong as the acting may be, Garland plugs in several moments, qualities, and characteristics that never quite match the total tonal balance. Whether oversimplified industrial sounds dotting the finale or a see-them-coming-a-mile-away final pair of shots, the film feels occasionally flimsy, even as its core remains stout and strong. It strives for a balance of beauty and terror, of foreboding and urgency. It's a balance Denis Villeneuve's brilliant Arrival achieved with grace and grandeur. Annihilation finds less success in its totality but is certainly a high quality example of high concept Sci-Fi moviemaking.

Annihilation teems with strongly developed and richly realized ideas, but it also falls just short of greatness. For all of the magnificence -- the characterization, the world building, the juxtaposition of beauty and grotesque violence -- it cannot help but to lean on cliché in several moments, and its final shots are dull, stale, and predictable. It's still a good-to-great film that's this close to standing amongst the genre's greats. Paramount's Blu-ray features a decent 1080p transfer that's put to shame by the vastly superior UHD image. Both discs feature stellar Dolby Atmos soundtracks and some good extras. Recommended, but buy the UHD instead if able to choose between the two.

[CSW] -3.8- Annihilation is the only universe in the past three decades to rivals Dune's dark beauty and exquisite detail on the big screen. The few hundred square miles that encompass this alien world is slowly revealed in perfect detail like the opening of a portea flower, frighteningly mesmerizing. As Alex Garland wove this tapestry of genetics, physics, religion, and philosophy, he pulled no punches. No idea was dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Every shot, including the CGI monsters, was a visual treat. I do give credit to Alex Garland for his novel of years ago The Beach and the film Ex Machina which really made an impression on me. I will not give away the mysteries and questions that this film raises.... but it seems that Garland is bucking convention and I do appreciate that. The acting by all is great, the flashbacks revealing uncertainty and shaky emotions. The scenes within "The Shimmer" are well done and eye popping, yet they do not overwhelm the story arc or the performances of real actors. Remember good science fiction ends in an idea and not an action, keep that in mind as an afterthought.
[V4.0-A3.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box really enhanced this movie.


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