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Annihilation

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79
Metascore
 51 reviews
7.1
User Score
 990 ratings

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Director: Alex Garland
Writer: Alex Garland Jeff VanderMeer
Production: Paramount Pictures
Movie Details: Lena (Natalie Portman), a biologist and former soldier, joins a mission to uncover what happened to
Lena (Natalie Portman), 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.
Genre(s): Action Adventure Sci-Fi Drama Mystery Thriller Fantasy Horror
MPAA Rating: R
Production: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 115 min
Home Release Date: May 29, 2018
Official Site: https://www.facebook.com/AnnihilationMovie/
Countries: USA UK GB US
Language: English
Director: Alex Garland
Writer: Alex Garland Jeff VanderMeer
Starring:
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  • Annihilation (Trailer 2)

    Annihilation (Trailer 2)

  • Annihilation: Doesn't Matter

    Annihilation: Doesn't Matter

  • Annihilation: Entering The Shimmer

    Annihilation: Entering The Shimmer

  • Annihilation: We Should Go Back

    Annihilation: We Should Go Back

  • Annihilation: Alex Garland On His Reaction To The Book

    Annihilation: Alex Garland On H...

  • Annihilation: Natalie Portman On Why She Wanted To Be Involved With The Project

    Annihilation: Natalie Portman O...

  • Annihilation: Bear Gets Sheppard

    Annihilation: Bear Gets Sheppard

  • Annihilation: Tessa Thompson On Why She Wanted To Be Involved With The Project

    Annihilation: Tessa Thompson On...

  • Annihilation: Evolution (Spot)

    Annihilation: Evolution (Spot)

  • Annihilation (International Trailer 1)

    Annihilation (International Tra...

  • Annihilation

    Annihilation

  • Annihilation: The Shimmer Featurette

    Annihilation: The Shimmer Featu...

  • Annihilation: The Shimmer (Featurette)

    Annihilation: The Shimmer (Feat...

  • Annihilation: Allon Reich On The Genre Of The Film

    Annihilation: Allon Reich On Th...

  • Annihilation: Theory (Spot)

    Annihilation: Theory (Spot)

  • Annihilation: Cast (Featurette)

    Annihilation: Cast (Featurette)

  • Annihilation: Andrew MacDonald On Why He Wanted To Make This Film

    Annihilation: Andrew MacDonald ...

  • Annihilation: Oscar Isaac On His Role

    Annihilation: Oscar Isaac On Hi...

  • Annihilation: Natalie Portman On Her Role

    Annihilation: Natalie Portman O...

  • Annihilation: Jennifer Jason Leigh On Her Character

    Annihilation: Jennifer Jason Le...

  • Annihilation: Tessa Thompson On Her Role

    Annihilation: Tessa Thompson On...

  • Annihilation: Annihilation Is Upon Us (Spot)

    Annihilation: Annihilation Is U...

  • Annihilation: Story (Featurette)

    Annihilation: Story (Featurette)

  • Annihilation (Clean Trailer)

    Annihilation (Clean Trailer)

  • Annihilation: Gina Rodriguez On Her Role

    Annihilation: Gina Rodriguez On...

  • Annihilation: Alex Garland & Jeff Vandermeer On What Inspired The Book

    Annihilation: Alex Garland & Je...

  • Annihilation: Jeff Vandermeer On The Genre Of The Book

    Annihilation: Jeff Vandermeer O...

  • Annihilation: Gina Rodriguez On Why She Wanted To Be Involved With The Project

    Annihilation: Gina Rodriguez On...

  • Annihilation: Jennifer Jason Leigh On Meeting Alex Garland

    Annihilation: Jennifer Jason Le...

  • Annihilation: Oscar Isaac On Working With Alex Garland

    Annihilation: Oscar Isaac On Wo...

  • Annihilation: Alex Garland On The Movie

    Annihilation: Alex Garland On T...

  • Annihilation: Tuva Novotny On Why She Wanted To Be Involved In The Project

    Annihilation: Tuva Novotny On W...

  • Annihilation: From Page To Screen (Featurette)

    Annihilation: From Page To Scre...

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Critic Reviews
(51)
79
Metascore Generally favorable reviews
44 Positive Ratings 86%
5 Mixed Ratings 9%
2 Negative Ratings 3%
Based on 51 Critic Reviews View All
100
The Telegraph
Tim Robey | May 12, 2018
"Portman’s high-tension acting, her inability to relax, suits the material down to the ground. It’s one of her best performances, moving through credible grief and bewilderment, but facing up bullishly to her fears by the end, and finding some kind of exhausted resolve to interrogate them." ... Read full review
91
Consequence
Clint Worthington | Feb 22, 2018
"It’s one of the most arresting, affecting science fiction movies of the last few years, and certainly one of the best films to see release in 2018 thus far. It’s ambitious and haunting, which makes its international streaming release all the more tragic." ... Read full review
90
Los Angeles Times
Justin Chang | Feb 21, 2018
"Its most impressive achievement may be how easily it welds the mechanics of genre and the cinema of ideas. Garland's movie has its grisly flourishes, but unlike so many thrillers that preoccupy themselves with spectacles of death, it's more interested in pondering the strange, inextricable link between creation and destruction." ... Read full review
83
The Verge
Tasha Robinson | Feb 23, 2018
"Annihilation is a portentous movie, and a cerebral one. It’s gorgeous and immersive, but distancing. It’s exciting more in its sheer ambition and its distinctiveness than in its actual action." ... Read full review
80
The Guardian
Benjamin Lee | Feb 21, 2018
"Annihilation is more than mere visuals and it will shock, fascinate and haunt whatever screen it’s watched on." ... Read full review
75
IGN
Jim Vejvoda | Feb 21, 2018
"Annihilation isn’t always as consistently well-executed or involving as it might have been, and it’s told in a manner that robs the story of some much needed life-or-death suspense, but overall it’s a bold undertaking that doesn’t play it safe and features some strong performances." ... Read full review
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle | Feb 22, 2018
"Thinking people also like a little drama with their science fiction. On that score, Annihilation comes up short." ... Read full review
Critic Reviews
User Reviews
(232)
7.1
User Score Generally favorable reviews
698 Positive Ratings 70%
170 Mixed Ratings 17%
122 Negative Ratings 12%
Based on 990 Ratings and 232 Reviews View All
10
joylit
Feb 23, 2018
This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. "Annihilation" is based on a novel of the same name by Jeff Vandermeer, a writer specialized in a sci-fi/fantasy sub-genre known as "Weird Fiction". This book is the first from a trilogy: the "Southern Reach Trilogy"; however, director/screenwriter Alex Garland ("Ex Machina") wrote this adaptation before the next two books were even published. "Annihilation" follows the story of a Lena, a biologist with military background, whose life has been shattered by the disappearance of her soldier husband who had gone on a secret mission into an ecological disaster area presumably harboring by an alien presence. At the beginning of the movie, we witness the return of the hubby, who unexpectedly comes back home in a confused mental state, soon becomes ill and is taken to a secret facility together with his wife. The place is a scientific research installation, built on the vecinity of an ever growing quarentined site known as "Area X", which comprises a coastal area and its adjacent forest, permanently enveloped in a phenomenon called "the shimmer"; this is an iridiscent wall of light that enshrouds the entire area, disconnecting it from the external world, which originated years prior when a meteorite hit a nearby lighthouse. Little is known about what is going on on the other side of "the shimmer", since several expeditions have gone missing and its members are presumably dead. Lena will meet doctor Vendress, a psychologist and authority figure, who explains to her that her husband is in the facility, suffering from multiple organ failure and massive bleeding. Both women agree that Lena should be part of the next expedition to Area X (it is argued she might be able to find a cure for her ailing husband), an all-female team that includes the rather obscurely motivated psychologist, all of whom seem to have very little to lose appart from their own lives. The movie weaves different timelines in a very seamless way: the very beginning is an interrogation scene where Lena is being inquired by a scientist about her experience in the Area X and the fate of her party; the second timeline kicks off with the husband's reappearance and continues with Lena meeting the members of the expedition and departing into the unknown. There are also flashbacks of Lena's immediate past with her husband, which provides information about their relationship that is crucial for establishing the dramatic core of the story. Alex Garland shows an assured hand with the complex narative, a combination of economy and elegance that that is both elocuent and easy to follow; this allows him to introduce different layers of meaning within the narrative (psychological, scientific, philosophical), and to tackle big themes without becoming pretentious or obtuse. The movie has memorable dialogue not included in the original novel and the characters are much more fleshed out (the conversation between the biologist and the psychologist about the nature of self destruction is a highlight, and a pivotal moment in the film).
As someone who have read the books, I have taken notice of the multiple changes that have been introduced by Garland, and even though a favorite character and storyline from the novel have been eliminated, and some elements have traded background/foreground places, I appreciate the way the director has made this story his own, taking enough from the book to make the story recognizable, but at the same time making his own interpretations and connections, expanding on its themes and characters. There is much wonder, weirdness and visual poetry to be found in the beautiful and exceptionally well crafted film, and to my surprise there is also plenty body horror and sudden outbursts of gnaly monster action, with one scene being particularly brutal and effective. This is a film where you can clearly appreciate the simbiotic relationship between these two highly imaginative thinkers, maybe the best collaboration since Kubrick and Arthrur C. Clarke in "2001: An Space Odyssey"). "Annihilation" represents the type of reflexive science fiction that ponders about our place in the cosmos, our intrinsic mutability, and the horrors this conjures; it amounts to a surreal, sciency phantasmagoria about desintegrating identity, deeply rooted in cosmic horror. It is the rare high concept movie that is both extremely entertaining and dazzingly thought provoking. And I have no words to describe that climax apart from saying it left me in complete awe. This is for sure a new sci-fi classic that consolidates Garland as one of the major sci-fi visionaries of our time.… Expand
9
Warlady
May 26, 2018
I just say Natalie Portman,this was a really interesting wierd movie and I liked it alot. I just wanted it to be longer.
9
DeadlyCarrot
Feb 24, 2018
This is very likely not a movie that everyone will understand, and that's the whole point. The beginnning is slow, but once it get's good, itThis is very likely not a movie that everyone will understand, and that's the whole point. The beginnning is slow, but once it get's good, it stays like that. This is the kind of movie you'll still be thinking about days after, because it's plot actually challenges your mind, which is rare these days. The only issue with this movie is it's slow start and sometimes strange dialogue.… Expand
7
Meth-dude
Feb 23, 2018
Although the dialogue was most of the time very cliché, the characters were stereotypical and the movie was predictable, it was stillAlthough the dialogue was most of the time very cliché, the characters were stereotypical and the movie was predictable, it was still surprisingly enjoyable. The acting was quite good, the CGI effects weren't that bad and the movie was entertaining. Sure, the movie had it's problems, but it's still a more than decent sci-fi movie.… Expand
6
TrevorsView
Mar 8, 2018
As it starts, Lena, a biologist, sits in a glassy room, questioned by a scientist in protection equipment who stands over her. She says sheAs it starts, Lena, a biologist, sits in a glassy room, questioned by a scientist in protection equipment who stands over her. She says she has no recollection on whatever just happened, compelling the viewer to remember events as she does. After photos in Lena’s sepia-tinted home illustrate her husband’s army life, he returns, devoid of previous recollection himself as to how he returned. Outside her own awareness, a comet strikes a lighthouse, warps its sense of shape or texture, then sets off an expanding rainbow bubble, its shimmery wall set to mutate cell reproduction.

Paralleling scene number one, Lena questioning her husband’s activity in war reverses her interrogation; she stands over him slumped in his seat. Once seated across each other at the table, held hands reflected backwards behind a water glass, his blood appears in said glass, the first sign of his multiple organ failure. Any focus on their eyes throughout this crisis implements whenever they witness obliteration, up until the last frame addresses all you need to know and all you wish to know.

I love underseen independent films like Annihilation, those following nontraditional narrative conventions to take creative liberties in discussing the inner human condition. Alex Garland already perfectly accomplished his breakout art-house feature Ex Machina, so now he brings out another visual delight in his second project, thus far the only movie of 2018 I’ve anticipated the release of!

Garland conveys his actors’ own bent genes, each performance almost appearing alien in a series unevenly blank appearances. Of the talented cast members, Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, Inside Llewyn Davis) happily sells it best as Lena’s husband. His illness deflects his voice to transparently reveal the sad lack of identity in his eyes: a slow, troubled, very real war veteran. It’s easy to see why Garland works well off Mr. Isaac!

Besides Garland’s attentive direction, the work by production designer Mark Digby (Ex Machina, Slumdog Millionaire) symbolically suggests a DNA strand’s deconstruction and reconstruction. You always seem boxed inside a different world larger than life in the Shimmer’s chaotic colors chosen to suggest self-destruction in a stark contrast against Lena’s boxy interrogation room. Inside the void grows beautiful yet strange flowers living together on a single branch, despite being of diverse species, alongside some technicolor moss and man-shaped bushes. These outlandish mutations hold beauty, although plenty of gruesome, supernatural appearances never shy away from any bodily imagery in its graphic detail that catches you off guard.

But honestly, Alex Garland has got room for improvement, particularly in helping the typical viewer care about the story. The on-the-nose dialogue said by such cold characters also tosses out more expositional information than the average viewer could handle, especially in the first act, all writing the names in the script out to model figures of altered chromosomes rather than well-fleshed out people.

This excess of information attempts to counteract the lack of sincere emotion with a cliché catalyst of Lena’s husband leaving her alone, a plot device done rather weakly compared to other similar scripts. Further validating the cliché, Lena cheats on her husband, in turn making her less sympathetic—would you root for some unfaithful whore? I sure wouldn’t! Especially since Lena expresses few tangible opinions about her team of four other women in their mission through the Shimmer, older viewers might not embrace something as absurd as this journey into the unknown.

However, Annihilation still meets the expectations of art cinema lovers in Alex Garland’s near-horror approach. In each disorienting time narrative beneath the Shimmer, suspense eliminates clear signs of what happens next. Soon, after several attacks by a creature shrouded in darkness, a horrific faceless bear’s roar mixed with a woman’s screams leaves both everything and nothing to the imagination. These are not the types of images you’re able to forget easily, regardless of whether you want it to.

With these brave woman leaders who willingly face up to such horrors previously unimagined, they warn us all, of our eventual end as we watch their individual paths to insanity inside the Shimmer. Likewise, this alternate future’s continental board steers clear of personal demolition, suggesting that the damaged male leaders in the United States wrongly believe women are the true unidentifiable Extra-Terrestrials in the foreign land that is masculine privilege. Considering Hollywood’s confused gender equality nonsense, it deserves some compliments when a motion picture like this one empowers women without devaluing men; they remind us that if equal treatment to both sides is achieved, we have no need to fear an annihilation.… Expand
4
DovahK
Jul 2, 2018
Realmente parece más interesante de lo que es, se queda en película del montón diga de ver en televisión a las cuatro de la tarde en cualquierRealmente parece más interesante de lo que es, se queda en película del montón diga de ver en televisión a las cuatro de la tarde en cualquier canal para rellenar el tiempo hasta el prime time… Expand
0
JLau
Nov 1, 2020
This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Sci-fi nonsense about evolution or mutation that doesn't seem to know just how dreadful it is on every level.… Expand
User Reviews