Annihilation

A pure and, in places, really terrifying horror with an inconclusive ending. The hypnotic atmosphere of the survey mutating the national park is perhaps disrupted a little inter by the memory sequences, but they are important too. Garland cleverly layers a story full of memory holes and, through hints, sets the scene for a mind-fuck finale, which deserves deeper analysis, not so much of what happened, but more like why. The tricks are sufficient, even if a little unbalanced. The overall visual is just wow. The human trees, moldy bodies and all the other mutants serve to advance the story. The acting was flawless, with Isaac being the most intriguing of all. Another great job after Ex Machina. (14/03/2018)

I was captivated by the trailer the other day, I'm not so impressed with the film in the end, but it's still a decent genre film with an excellent idea. Four female scientists, each specialized in something different, go to explore a new area where the laws of nature don't apply and where no one has ever come back alive. It's great idea, but I felt it didn't get as much space as it could have. The film is unnecessarily hampered by flashbacks that aren't very entertaining and it shows in the pacing. There's a great scene with a white crocodile and a mutant bear that wreaks havoc in a cabin and there's one excellent gore scene with a ripped jaw, that really had me going crazy with joy. The final philosophical half hour didn't impress me that much and I found the finale quite confusing. I would definitely add more mutated animals and anything from nature in general to make it more satisfying. The film is definitely worth recommending for the idea, the visuals and the bear, though it’s not great. 70%. (18/03/2018)

The less sense there is, the stronger the fate, or how not even a mutated extraterrestrial ecosystem isn’t enough for someone to act with some sense with their protozoan intelligence, isn’t it, Marceloo? But on the other hand, I wouldn’t take Annihilation as a deeply philosophical work, either – the fact that anyone can get frustrated because of that is funny. Portman and four more scientists, about whom a lot can be written (though certainly not that the director has made them likeable) go to investigate a Zone… and they find pretty much what the trailer promised, although there is less survival and mutated creatures than expected. Then it nicely goes to a highly atmospheric and wordless mind-fuck, but there’s nothing unpredictable about it, either. In a Nolan film, Nataly would have spoken a lot in the end and that would be it. I really enjoyed Annihilation, it’s visually excellent, the special effects are engaging and here and there it pushes the mind into a nicely dark direction. But I have a soft spot for sci-fi premises like this, in any media, and I’m really interested in the book version now. But I don’t think this film is that awesome, really; my expectations were perhaps a little higher. (12/03/2018)

Damsels in distress slightly differently. Sophisticated chamber slow (you will feel it is twice as long; but it's not a complaint) second-rate movie, where, however, everyone behaves logically and appropriately in given situations and which takes the same from Strugacky as from Things and Arrival. But surprisingly little of VanderMeer's original. On the one hand, the scenes are both captivating and disturbing, atmosphere is dense. On the other hand, it is supposed to be a hardcore sci-fi movie that is rich in interpretation and that has dimension overlap. And I am not at all sure whether it is justified and or whether the movie is just pretending to be that way or if it is just banal. In any case, (not only) for these reasons, it will make you wonder about staff, that´s fur sure. The movie will not get out of your head as soon as you see closing credits. (12/03/2018)

Set in a green rainforest (and on a beach), Annihilation is a more intellectual version of The Thing. It has a rather mainstream theme with a slightly B-movie nature but interesting ideas, escalated into a hitherto unseen close encounter of the third kind, fascinating by its far-reaching imagination and a provocative need to find as many answers as possible in it. The final scene is a return to genre rules, but it turns out well. Garland is not a hitmaker, but rather a hard-core sci-fi filmmaker. While Arrival was about the relativity of the perception of time, Annihilation is about the relativity of biological lifeforms. Totally different, but in both cases brilliant, innovative sci-fi works, ambitious in their content. (24/12/2018)