One of the year's best and the best sci-fi film since 2016's Arrival

Rating: 9/10 (23 February 2018)

ANNIHILATION (2018) ***1/2 Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tuva Novotny, Tessa Thompson. Smart and spooky sci-fi thriller with Portman as a biologist who enlists on a mysterious, secretive military involved project in the aftermath of her soldier husband (Isaac) returning only to go into a vegetative state from exposure to the alien 'shimmer' he encounters and apparently the sole survivor. Filmmaker Alex Garland shrewdly adapts Jeff VanderMeer's novel with Ã©lan and inventiveness (i.e. the platoon sent are all female and barely a scoff or comment on the fact) while employing some practical and impressively cosmic acid trippy visual CGI f/x to boot (sparing no gore either so the squeamish you've been warned). Scanned elements of past genre classics like John Carpenter's The Thing, Aliens, and even dare I say A Sound Of Thunder whereby nature takes a turn for the worst...or does it. One of the year's best and the best sci-fi film since 2016's Arrival (come to think of it a kissing cousin).