Annihilation Review (2018)

Annihilation

  After watching several analysis videos of this film and seeing it twice in theaters, I think I'm officially qualified to write this review.
  Directed by Ex Machina's Alex Garland, and starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Oscar Isaac, we are lead into The Shimmer. What happens in The Shimmer? Nobody knows. All we know is that everyone who goes inside dies. Well, except for one person. Now a group of female scientists with nothing to lose, go inside to see for themselves what they can learn.
  This film's concept fascinated me from the beginning, and the first two acts of it is actually pretty straightforward. Despite some of the side characters not being as fleshed out as I might have liked, you are fully engaged with them, and you want to solve all of these mysteries as much as they do.
  Annihilation's cinematography is very strange, in that it's really beautiful, and yet really ugly at the same time. The color grading induces this sense of disorienting unease and nasuea that I believe is intentional and works to fill the audience with dread.
  What I love about Annihilation, is that it isn't afraid to take big concepts and run with them. It's a smart movie for a smart audience, and it asks a lot of questions we don't necessarily get answers to. Like Inception, you will probably have to watch this movie at least 3 times before you fully understand everything. Honestly though, those are my favorite kind of movies. Movies that provoke thought and conversation long after you leave the theater. For that reason, I give Annihilation a 9 out of 10 stars (I'd Buy It On Blu-ray)