Page 2 March 1 , 2018
Film Review
Sprawling Annihilation Explores Humanity from the Cellular Level
Ryan Rojas for www.cinemacy.com
It’s fun when sci-fi is combined with
grandly ambitious ideas. Here, director Alex
Garland explores what it means to be human
by understanding our own cellular division at
the most microscopic level – but Annihilation
is less of a coherent vision than it is a
familiar flick of a fight-to-survive with some
psychedelic flair.
In Annihilation, the threat to humanity
isn’t so much that of humans being wiped
from the face of the Earth by extraterrestrials,
but rather extinction through mutations
to DNA in which humans either cross-evolve
with other life forms, or be killed by those
very creations. This wildly ambitious and
heavily conceptual sci-fi flick begins with a
crash course in explaining cellular make-up
at its most basic level: as taught to us in a
collegiate course setting by biologist Lena
(Natalie Portman). She explains how the
activity of endless division within the body
– one becoming two, two becoming four, and
so on and so forth – shows a fundamental
error in our own evolution, in that we are
programmed to divide rather than unify.
It’s a somewhat cynical premise, but as
Lena’s military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac)
has been gone for a full year since being
deployed on a covert mission, we concede
that Lena has rightfully become hardened.
That is, until Kane stumbles his way through
the front door of their home one unexpected
night, to Lena’s shock. From a military pop-up
base that she and her husband are immediately
whisked away to, Lena is informed by
Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that her
husband was part of an infantry unit called
upon to enter a mysterious site called “The
Shimmer.” At this location, evolution of
all living matter refracts up to its bubbly
Annihilation. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
orb and then back down on itself, making
for crazy cross-pollinating life forms that
include beautiful floral families and mutated
killer bears. With Kane lying comatose, Lena
decides to join a new unit who is prepping
to enter The Shimmer to discover its origin.
Of course, early scientific study turns into
an all-out fight for survival as the team soon
learns what threatens them inside.
We’ve seen this sort of alien expedition
mission movie before in films like Prometheus
and even in Arrival, but this cast
brings another dimension. Portman returns
from her Oscar-winning turn in 2016’s Jackie
to re-assert herself as a big screen action
Ryan Rojas.
star -- and while it may be more likely to
believe Lena is an academic biologist rather
than seven-year army veteran, Leigh as Dr.
Ventress is commanding all the same, lending
more pathos then bravado in her position of
power. And one of the most welcome points
of the movie is the all-female crew that moves
into The Shimmer, comprised of Anya (Gina
Rodriguez), Josie (Tessa Thompson), and
Cass (Tuva Novotny).
Garland (Ex Machina) is among the
more ambitious sci-fi storytellers to bring
challenging material to the big screen,
and Annihilation offers a closer reading for
those who read into it. The fact that teams
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of soldiers continue to enter The Shimmer,
knowing that nobody has come back alive (the
exception being a comatose Kane) is actually
a comment about the flaw in human design.
Lena also discovers a shared characteristic
in the crew: they are all escaping vices and
addictions that await them at home. Garland
makes the connection that perhaps humans
are destined to be self-destructive creatures.
Of course, this is a deeper reading that
may penetrate audiences, and the rest of
the film offers enough serious and interesting
world-building that it becomes a unique
movie-watching experience. Annihilation ends
with a wordless sequence that is stirring and
captivating. While Garland expands on bringing
his philosophy into action and grander
visual storytelling, Annihilation is ultimately
more exciting for the ideas that it brings
forward than its execution.
115 min. Annihilation is rated R for violence,
bloody images, language and some
sexuality. Now playing. •