For decades, Hollywood has loved to use malevolent
extraterrestrial invaders for that sort of primal fear that triggers the unknown.
Be it the Freud-mocking overtones of Ridley Scott’s xenomorph, the
gore-splattering transformation of John Carpenter’s The Thing, or the
antivirus-forgetting invaders of Independence Day, evil aliens make for a nice
and conveniently unknowable threat that anyone can get behind seeing
splattered. Sometimes the humans are the interlopers, like in Avatar or
Starship Troopers, but for the most part, we just plain like seeing Will Smith
punch some slimy son of a bitch.
But occasionally, there’s the more interesting concept of
actually trying to communicate with such creatures, and the difficulties that
come in trying to get through to something beyond us in every step of
evolution. Contact and Arrival deal with the linguistic side of things, but
then here comes Alex Garland, director of the excellent Ex Machina, that
presents humanity trying to just grapple with the fundamentals of an
otherworldly bugger in Annihilation.
The film stars Natalie Portman as Lena, consigned to having
lost her army husband Kane, played by Oscar Isaacs. That’s Padme Amidala and
Poe Dameron together at last for all the Star Wars geeks. Eventually, Kane returns,
acting rather bizarrely, and from there, Lena is whisked away by the government
to find a whole region of everglades being overtaken by a…presence, let’s just
say, that doesn’t let anything get out. From there, she joins four other women
in venturing into the area, and things only get weird, weird, weird, from there
on out.
The characterization is a mixed bag—Natalie Portman does a
solid job with what she’s given, but what she’s given seems mostly pining over
her hubby Dameron—er, Kane—and acting rather confused over everything. Jennifer
Jason Leigh as Doctor Ventress (another Star Wars nod?) presents a strange and
ambiguous character who gets little tidbits to built her up that become
apparent as you think back, but the rest don’t feel as fleshed out as they
could’ve been. This is probably the weakest point of the film, but there’s
still more to get into.
Things start off slow at first—we get glimpses of Lena’s
home life, set to those acoustic guitar songs that happen to be the annoying
sort for me that I don’t like, but once they enter the swamp, the film starts
steadily ramping up. Mutated crocodiles give way to alterations to the human
genome, and while the movie gives suggestions as to what’s happening, it’s
really just guesswork from the characters, leaving your own imagination to try
and figure out the reality-shifting nature of the phenomena. There’s more
spine-chilling little implications when we see videos from Kane’s unit, with
that being the moment that the body horror really sets in, and starts ratching
up from there.
At this point, the film plays out more like a sort of somewhat
weird horror film that blends Heart of Darkness with The Thing, especially with
the mutated wildlife. There’s an excellent scene that involves bear trouble, and
I’ll say no more, say that it’ll really give you a grin if you enjoy yourself
some monstrous creepiness. Not everyone will like it, but if you get that far,
it’s mandatory to go through to the final act.
From there…well, let’s just say it’s like how 2001: A Space
Odyssey escalated from a straightforward science fiction story of rogue
computers and lunar discoveries to, to use the most loquacious of terms, an
absolute friggin’ mindfuck. The true form of the alien presence is something
that’s genuinely hard to describe, and that’s something that’s gratifying when
you’ve seen too many that are just two-legged people with lobsters on their
foreheads. Nothing is truly spelled out about any motives or reasons, and once
again, it’s down to you to piece things together, or think about just what the
hell you just watched.
All in all, while Annihilation starts off a bit slow and a
bit mixed, just watch it all the way to the end—you’ll have something to talk
about with your friends at least. It’s on Netflix here in Europe, because
Paramount decided that it didn’t want the costs of a theatrical release on
account of the film being just too dang intellectual for what it sees as common
schmucks. The film isn’t that obtuse
for the most part, no more so than the likes of Arrival and Interstellar, but
hey, it doesn’t rack in the big bucks like another chaotic Bay piece after all.
Prove the suits wrong, and give it a shot. It’s not perfect,
but Garland’s imagery and direction is going to leave a lot of things with you
that aren’t going to go away any time soon.
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