Annihilation

Writer (Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Ex Machina) and director (Ex Machina) Alex Garland has made a rare and valuable sci-fi thriller with ideas bigger and scarier than its monsters. The local crowd in the theater where I saw Annihilation hated the movie, there were walkouts and boos at the end, most likely from folks who were expecting a popcorn creature flick. While this movie does have its share of hungry, mutated beasts, it ultimately has more in common with 2001, Contact, or a recent sci-fi fable like Under The Skin than it does with Aliens or Cloverfield.

Annihilation explores themes of mortality and self-destruction by way of a science fiction parable about an alien force that crashes on earth and begins to remix the DNA of every living thing in its path. Natalie Portman’s Lena is a biology professor at Johns Hopkins and a former military recruit. She is married to Oscar Isaac’s Kane, a soldier on active duty who disappears in action for a year. When he suddenly returns one day, Lena is swept up into the horrific mystery of “the Shimmer,” the bubble of evolutionary mutation emanating from the alien presence. She joins a team of female scientists to enter the Shimmer, ostensibly out of duty to her husband, but her true motives are tied to the movie’s figure-it-out-on-the-way-home climax. Along the way there are scares and wonders and this is a great movie.