Annihilation

Annihilation is hard to review, as it keeps defying conventions. It bridges sci-fi and horror, but only uses them as seasoning for the overall story. Except the story itself is not complex. There are some themes and concepts explored, but only lightly, little more than echoes. It has action, but only minimally, and always of grave consequence. So how does one review a movie that constantly walks a tightrope that’s put there by design? By complimenting how well it accomplishes that task, I suppose. It mashed to keep all of those elements balanced well. The sci-fi elements are both lush and alien and interesting while also being chilling and disturbing. The horror is both grounded and fantastic. The action is rooted in both of those elements, but nobody ever takes 37 punches and 4 gunshots and is still standing. The direction is, for the most part, excellent. The world being explored is at once recognizable and other-worldly, and Alex Garland captures it very well. The score is a variety of styles, from haunting electronic music to sparse solo guitar to more standard orchestral material, and it all works together. Mostly. Where the movie comes up short is acting and communicating the central conflict. On the acting end, the actors seem to have been divided into two camps: those playing it too low-key, and those playing it too histrionic. There is no in between. I’m no fan of Natalie Portman, and while she does better here than I normally think, she (as well as Jennifer Jason Leigh) is still way too understated for the situation. Meanwhile, Gina Rodriguez seems to be channeling (at different times) both Hudson and Vasquez from Aliens. And Tessa Thompson … I don’t know what she’s doing. None of them alone or in a group are outright bad, but because the movie wants to be contemplative and come off as A Serious Film, it seems to think its actors can’t … you know … act. The bigger flaw — again, not a movie killer, but something that keeps it from being all it can be — is that there’s never really a sense of danger communicated. There’s immediate threats, sure, but for some reason, the stakes of the overall mission never come off as important as they should, since this has the potential to destroy Earth. This also feels like a causality of the movie’s inflated sense of self-importance. The mindset seems to be that it can’t just outline the threat like Independence Day. No, it has to be kept at arms length, so it can be treated as a philosophical exercise, and that’s just silly. At the end of the day, the movie can be summed up as “alien crash lands on Earth, causes problems, team goes to investigate”. It’s a step removed from Predator, but Alex Garland wants it to be as intellectual as a debate on the Trolley Problem. So, I did like it, more than it would seem from my review, I think, but it’s almost in spite of itself. It’s flaws certainly don’t sink it, but it does make it come off more high-falutin’ than intelligent. If this had just surrendered to what it obviously should’ve been — weird as hell — it would’ve been a home run instead of a stand-up double.