SF films keep extending their reach

Rating: 7/10 (18 March 2018)

I see the pro critics generally like this film a lot, and it certainly does have lots of plus marks to note. It's a bit frustrating to watch in places, but it's visually striking and gets more so as it goes on, as we get further and further into the center of the mystery called The Shimmer. I also see that numerous viewers didn't like the fact that not everything is spelled out for them in the plot. This was never going to be a film that had mega-box office appeal, but that's no indicator of either its quality or its importance in the developing history of SF films. Sure enough, in the plot of Annihilation not everything is explained: some things that happen to the exploration team just -- happen. Exactly what they are after and what they are supposed to do when they reach the lighthouse at the center of the Shimmer where the unexplained phenomenon started, are never spelled out. 'How' and 'why' are not questions that are always addressed, all the way through to a somewhat ambiguous and vaguely unsettling ending, although the principal hero (Natalie Portman's role as Lena) does rather clearly succeed in triggering the Shimmer's self-destruction in the end. (With apologies to Virginia Woolf, a subtitle for the main episode inside The Shimmer could be called To The Lighthouse.)
One thing I liked was the way that a major stereotype of such films was turned on its head. The team of five agents put together to go into The Shimmer is all female, played by Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson (almost unrecognizable here compared with her recent turn in Thor: Ragnarok), Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny. If this had been a movie from a decade or more ago, we'd have seen a team of five tough-guy Marines marching with machine guns at the ready into the misty forest of the Shimmer. But hero teams like this have changed with the times, and nowadays, it's become standard for them to have a woman or two and of course some ethnic diversity. But here? We have five *women* in fatigues marching into the misty forest, machine guns at the ready. This was very strange, and also very refreshing. Each of them is there for different reasons (in Portman's case, she is driven to find out what happened to her husband, a lone survivor from a previous team who has come back out (again, we don't find out how) in a near-catatonic state.). All of them are capable in their own ways, but because of their various personality flaws all except Lena fall victim to to what the Shimmer has to throw at them.
Bottom line? Absolutely worth seeing, and a worthy new extension to the expanding range of the SF genre. It's virtually at the opposite end of the spectrum from Star Wars. Here, the setting, the ambience, and the mood are almost the main point. This is rare, but it's not an absolute newcomer to this kind of style. To me, it resembled the moody and mysterious 'Solaris' (the one from 2002 starring George Clooney, which is also worth seeing if you haven't. I admit I haven't seen the earlier classic Russian version of Solaris from 1972, which is a gap I need to correct as soon as possible.). Just settle in and let it take you along. A lot that you will see will stick in the mind.