Mind-altering!

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2018)

Annihilation (2018) is a very intense, off the wall sci-fi movie that is filled with death, love, stunning visuals, and a bit of horror. The best part about Annihilation is that there is an all-female lead cast which is really significant and sends a statement considering the circumstances in Hollywood pertaining to gender. Not only are they bad ass women but they are also smart women who are each a different type of scientist, and that isn't something we see too often in these types of movies or in movies at all. I give Annihilation 10 out of 10 stars for keeping me entertained throughout the entirety of it and for making me want to read the novel that it is based off of. Usually I read the book and then watch the movie but that wasn't the case for Annihilation. If the movie is this good then the book has the be mind-blowing.
I really enjoyed the way Director Alex Garland set up the story, he cuts between past and present scenes throughout the movie. He gives us the background of Lena, the main character of the movie, and the life she is living as a biologist professor at Johns Hopkins. She hasn't seen or heard from her husband in a year. He shows up and it's as if his memory has been completely wiped away. His health starts to deteriorate quickly and the government takes Kane and Lena to Area X and she learns of "the shimmer" This is where the movie starts to get mind-altering, almost hallucinatory.
The shimmer is a place that defies the laws of nature, is drenched in colors and is visually striking. Garland makes the shimmer seem like a place of fantasy and a place that you would want to spend time in until something very dark emerges. That dark is the unknown and a place that is changing at a fast rate. There are flowers that are all the same species but very different looking. The animals that were once normal are evolving into monsters that have never been seen. In the very first scary scene there is an alligator that looks like an alligator but isn't quite like the alligators we are used to seeing. Not only is everything around them changing but they are changing as well. The group of women have to deal with this prism that refracts everything, with their own minds and if they can trust each other or not which is pretty great to watch because I think most people would feel the same way.
I believe a soundtrack can make or break a movie and Annihilation's soundtrack definitely made the movie. The darkest parts are accompanied by equally dark music. Not only are we seeing some pretty horrific scenes we are hearing music that helps those goosebumps run from head to toe. Music that makes you feel as if you are actually there experiencing every bit of the shimmer. The music was never over used but used at just the right times, filled with intensity and made you feel disoriented. The swimming pool scene is by far one of the creepiest and the music really contributes to that creepiness, like nails on a chalkboard. In this scene we see the body of a man, who was part of a previous group that entered the shimmer, stuck up on the wall of the deep end of a swimming pool. The music we hear in this scene is not really music at all but more like an alarm that gets louder and louder as we see this body that has mutated in to something very out of this world.
There's nothing worse than watching a movie with terrible acting, especially when you pay to see it in a theater. The acting in Annihilation is good and Natalie Portman does an excellent job in my opinion. I have seen a few movies she has done in the past where I thought she didn't do too well (Where the Heart Is) but she blew me away in Annihilation, she makes you feel like you aren't watching a movie. One scene that I think she did incredibly well in is the scene when she gets to the lighthouse and the humanoid emerges from the hole in the wall. She is watching this humanoid mimic her but it's a CGI character. She moves beautifully and makes it seem like the humanoid isn't CGI at all but rather a real person.
Gareth Edwards Monsters (2010) has a similar plot to Annihilation's but one is far better than the other. The quality of Annihilation out weights Monsters by far. I'm sure budget has something to do with this but I was quite bored while watching Monsters, and I was on the edge of my seat, beginning to end while watching Annihilation. Garland gives us just the right amount of background on the main characters and Edwards' entire movie is focused entirely on the background. If I am going to watch a sci-fi movie about aliens I want to see more of the aliens. There's nothing wrong with a little romance in a sci-fi movie but that's all I saw in Monsters.
Garland is giving us more questions than answers in Annihilation and I like movies like this because they keep us talking after the movie has ended. I watched this movie with my significant other and we left the theater with a bizarre feeling that's almost impossible to put into words, like a disconnect between mind and body and not unlike the otherworldly sensation of tripping on mushrooms. We talked about the movie for the entirety of our thirty-minute drive home and I think that says a lot about how well this movie is made. If you are in to sci-fi movies that are filled with great acting, great music, great visuals, and a great story then you will most likely enjoy Annihilation.