Needless to say, my current schedule made it harder to do what I was doing early on, but it's not like I could just say: "You've got to change my schedule because I can't review movies all the time like I used to!" Lol. Obviously, I do this blog more for fun than anything else (and no, I'm not getting paid for any of this) - and yes, I do consider this fun: I'm old, what can I say? It doesn't take much.
Anyhoo, I'll be back to my old schedule soon, which gives me just enough time to knock out a few more new reviews before I get back to reviewing the older stuff like I used to. That also includes franchise reviews, which I haven't done since the holidays. I already have a few picked out, including a couple that tie into more current TV-series spin-offs, which I'll also be reviewing- as well as watching some for the first time, in the case of the TV shows.
I'm not entirely sure when the change will go down, but I was told within the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted accordingly. Until then, I have just enough time to do a few new reviews, though, rest assured, I'll still do those on occasion as well, especially if I see something worth reviewing, as was the case with my latest review subject...
In the latest from Ex Machina writer/director Alex Garland, the cerebral filmmaker once again delves into a world in which science fiction and horror collide, this time even more overtly than in his past works. In Annihilation, a grieving widow- or so she thinks- is stunned when her long thought dead husband returns out of nowhere without much in the way of explanation. No sooner has he returned than he starts coughing up blood, and she is forced to call an ambulance.
Then, en route to the hospital, they are intercepted by a group of shadowy figures that jump out and grab her husband and drug her and take her as well, to a sheltered government facility in some undisclosed location somewhere in the vicinity of Florida. We discover that the woman, Lena (Natalie Portman), is a cellular biologist, and that her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac, also in Ex Machina), disappeared while on a covert mission to... somewhere unknown- at least at first.
Lena is questioned by psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight), who, upon determining that Lena knows next to nothing about what's going on- her husband wasn't much of a sharer, in that regard, working for the government and all- finally discloses that Kane had been investigating an unexplained phenomenon that the authorities have been calling the "Shimmer," a sort-of glowing, colorful light that is covering a section of land in Florida.
It seems that the "Shimmer" is expanding, and might eventually overtake the rest of the world if they don't stop it. One problem: everyone that the government send into the "Shimmer" zone never comes back out, and that includes robots, drones, animals, etc. Radio/video communication from within the "Shimmer" zone is also a no-go, so they don't know what happened to anyone/anything, either.
To that end, Dr. Ventress is putting together yet another team, this time made up entirely of women, as all the previous human teams were made up of men. She's hoping that the gender switch might succeed where other missions have failed- that is, except for Kane, the only one to make it out alive, albeit in dire condition, and currently on life support at the moment.
In hopes of garnering some clues as to what happened to him, Lena volunteers to go on the mission as well, but on one condition: no one else on the team can know her ulterior motive. As far as they know, she's strictly there because of her expertise as a cellular biologist. Needless to say, this fact does eventually come out, with unpleasant repercussions, because of course it does.
The other members of the team are: Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin), a paramedic; Cassie Sheppard (Tuva Novotny, Possession), a geomorphologist (aka an expert on land); and Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson, Westworld), a physicist. Perhaps needless to say, it's pretty gratifying to see such a female-heavy cast in an original film that's not a reboot or the like (i.e. Ocean's 8 or Ghostbusters).
It's also a given that things almost immediately begin to go wrong once the new group enters the "Shimmer," gender be damned. First, the crew loses time, with no one able to remember making their way to a certain spot and setting up camp, even though depleted rations make it clear they must have been inside the zone for days now.
Then, they start to notice how off things are around them. The flora appears to be weird hybrids of multiple species, despite all growing from the same stem, which is technically impossible. Before too long, they realize a similar mutation can be found in the animals there as well- a too close encounter with what looks like an alligator actual proves to be a hybrid of a gator and a shark. There's also a nightmare fuel-inducing mutant bear which is able to mimic the sounds of other creatures to lure its prey.
Things go from there, getting progressively worse, until the crew- or some of them, at least- eventually do stumble upon the truth of what's really going on with the "Shimmer," to a certain extent. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it myself, but suffice it to say it involves refraction and cellular mutations that mimic other cells, not unlike a variation of what goes on in Carpenter's version of The Thing, which makes this the second movie I've seen within the week (along with Overlord) that borrows from that classic.
Unfortunately, as with that film, Annihilation wasn't exactly a box office blockbuster, making it a shoe-in for future cult classic status, as more and more people find it on Netflix and the like. Netflix bought the rights to distribute the film in most foreign territories and to stream it later on (which is where I saw it), with Paramount financing the film and holding the rights to it in the US, Canada and China.
Reportedly, it was to be the first film in a proposed trilogy, based on a book series by author Jeff VanderMeer. However, the movie was made before the book series was completed, so, much like Game of Thrones, writer Alex Garland was left to his own devices when it came to filling in the blanks for the unreleased material. Sadly, given that the film didn't even break even at the box office- it cost between $40-55 million, depending on the source, and only grossed $43 million- it seems unlikely that we'll get any follow-ups, save in book form.
Word is that the film wasn't particularly well-received by test audiences, but that, in a rare show of solidarity, producer Scott Rudin, who had final cut, sided with director Garland and insisted that his vision remain intact. Given that this put Rudin at odds with his fellow producer, David Ellison, who felt that the film was "too intellectual" and "complicated" and wanted to retool the film, changing the ending in particular and to tweak Portman's character to make her more "sympathetic," chances are we won't be seeing any more films in the series.
That's too bad, as Annihilation is a fascinating endeavor that is indeed pretty cerebral, but that's also what I think Garland's audience has come to expect from his work, which, in addition to Ex Machina, also includes writing the scripts for 2012's Dredd, Never Let Me Go, Sunshine and 28 Days Later, most of which he also produced as well. He is also a novelist, who wrote the Gen X cult fave The Beach, upon which the film of the same name was based, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tilda Swinton.
Annihilation reminded me not only of The Thing in more subtle ways than Overlord (i.e. the scene in which several characters are tied to their chairs and interrogated) but also of more left-of-center sci-fi/horror efforts like The Day of the Triffids, Silent Running and Die Monster Die!/The Curse/Colour From the Dark and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, all of which were inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft tale "The Colour Out of Space," which details the after-effects of a crashed meteorite, which causes illness and strange behavior in humans and mutations in animals and vegetation and so forth. (Note also the similarities to the cover of that book and the poster.)
In addition, I couldn't help but think of the infamous mutated bear in the cult favorite Prophecy when it comes to the best supporting actor in this film, that freaky bear creature. Appearance-wise, the Prophecy one is more ick-inducing than the one here, but this one takes the cake because of its particular abilities, which are hella disturbing.
Indeed, the entire film structure couldn't help but remind me of another genre favorite: the slasher flick. After all, what was the original Alien but a slasher film that happened to be set on a space-ship? That's not a coincidence, either, as writer Dan O'Bannon was a contemporary of director John Carpenter, with whom he made the amusing Dark Star, which is like a more comedic version of Alien. After seeing the success Carpenter had with his Halloween, O'Bannon no doubt thought to combine the two films for what became Alien.
Here, Garland, working from only one book in an intended trilogy, probably filled-in-the-blanks using some of his own favorite sci-fi and horror films, hence the fact that some of the film seems a bit borrowed, but not necessarily in a bad way. But if you're well-versed in both horror and sci-fi, you're definitely going to find some of this familiar, for sure. Whether you consider that to be a good or bad thing is up to you, but in this case, I found it to be overall pretty entertaining.
Besides, like I said, it's rare to see such a strong female cast in a film like this- the last one that comes to mind is something like The Descent, though there may be others I'm forgetting at the moment. As with that film, these ladies are smart, self-assured, and must work together to survive- or go against each other at their own peril. It's refreshing to see something like that in a film like this, where women tend to be monster/stalker fodder.
Unfortunately, that's also where the more negative aspects of the film come in, since, also as with slasher flicks, most of the characters aren't particularly well-defined, save Final Girl Portman- not a spoiler, as you see she survives the ordeal in the opening scene. Basically, as with slashers, each girl is given one or two defining characteristics... and that's about it. Actually, I'd even go so far as to argue that most of them are flat-out reduced to the job definitions I gave above.
There's one character who is identified as being a lesbian, one who lost a child, one who tried to kill herself (or rather, "cut herself to feel alive," as one character puts it) and one who has cancer, but that's about as far as it goes for character stuff. So, yeah, it's basically a slightly brainier version of a slasher movie with some surface-level scientific stuff thrown in to make it seem smarter than it is. But I happen to love slasher movies for all of their faults, so it's not so much a complaint as it is an observation.
That said, I can certainly see why some audiences wouldn't particularly cotton to it- after all, none of the characters here are exactly warm and fuzzy nurturer types- but who says they have to be? Unfortunately, that does still tend to be what is expected of women in fictional representation, unless you're going for the whole "this one is good" and "this one is bad" thing, which is also acceptable to the masses. God forbid women actually be allowed to be, you know, complicated and, um, human.
But that's also my point here. Garland gives us a cast of excellent actors, with Portman, Thompson, and Leigh in particular having done complex, layered work elsewhere in more ambitious projects. Here, they're mostly reduced to "types"- hence the slasher movie comparison. Not that that's the only reason I brought it up- they're also stuck in an isolated locale and picked off one by one by an always lurking predator that uses subterfuge to lure them out of hiding at times. Sound familiar?
As such, there's much to recommend here for non-discerning slasher movie fans, but also sci-fi fans that don't mind something that soft-pedals the science aspect a bit. Although, I say this as someone who's seen/read quite a bit of both horror and sci-fi, so your mileage may vary on the science end, which some may find themselves a bit perplexed by, especially toward the end. (Just think an alien species with replicating abilities that aren't quite there yet and you've basically got the gist of it.)
That said, there's a lot to recommend here- cyphers or not, the cast is strong, and the writing isn't bad, just a bit half-formed, much like the alien species itself. Visually, though, it's spectacular, with a lot of the given shots looking like super-cool (if occasionally hella disturbing) art installations. Props to the production designers, which is not something I tend to shout out much in my line of work, but probably should do more of. Mark Digby, a Garland regular, did the major honors here, BTW. Here are some examples:
The film is a bit slow-moving at times, but just when you least expect it, some crazy stuff happens, like a mutant animal attack, so that may be by design. I also dug the ending, which, despite the unlikelihood of it now, leaves the door open for more exploration of the fascinating world Garland and author VanderMeer have created. Who knows? Maybe Netflix will turn it into a series or something. Stranger Things have happened. (See what I did there? 😉)
I say check it out. If you like this sort of thing, or if you're a big Garland fan, you won't be disappointed. 👹
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