REVIEW: ANNIHILATION

4/5

Death By Annihilation.

115 Mins. Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotvy, David Gyasi, Benedict Wong & Oscar Isaac. Director: Alex Garland.

Destruction comes in many forms. From the threat of nature around us paying us back for all we take. To what we have nurtured in how we treat ourselves. 'Annihilation' looks at this extinction level event inevitability. The word "annihilate" is defined by Webster as "to destroy all traces of". And here you're going to get a figurative and literal representation of all of that. Based on Jeff VanderMeer's terrific trilogy beginning bestseller, 'The Beach' novelist and '28 Days Later' screenwriter Alex Garland follows his devastatingly dynamite directing debut 'Ex Machina' with the only thing we fear finishing us off more than the threat of Artificial Intelligence...the one from the mother nature of our own natural world. And whether robots or planets the actual alien notion of all of this is that it's all in our hands. We brought this all on ourselves. We created this destruction. Heavy I know. But a '2001 A Space Odyssey' and 'Interstellar' like epic, event film for the science fiction genre that shares more strands of DNA with 'Under The Skin' and 'The Tree Of Life', than say 'The Thing' or the forest aesthetic threat of 'Predator' was always going to be. Like Amy Adams alien 'Arrival' with 'Blade Runner 2049' thinking androids director Denis Villeneuve, 'Annihilation' will leave you thinking, talking and traipsing ending explanation articles and videos (much like Denis' Gyllenhaal doppleganger 'Enemy'). Long after you've left the theatre or Netflix app. Until it haunts you like last years deepest and most definitive, cinematic classic, 'A Ghost Story'. Portishead powered to a sonic score with all those hallmark low-fi, sci-fi drones, offset by the strumming acoustics of the chords of Crosby, Stills and Nash. This made for each other mix of home life and an extra terrestrial one shows us what lies beyond and what lies beneath and within our very souls. On the bubbling surface the oil and water like "Shimmer" of Area X in a Florida swampland shines a light on what we are doing to this physical world. But rifle gun run to the lighthouse like Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Shutter Island' and 'Annihilation' will show the darkness of what we are doing to our actual psychological selves.

Sinewy deer with cherry blossom branches as antlers. Alligators with even bigger jaws that bite. A wild boar that's scream bears more of a resemblance to your own shrieking cry of terror. This is a very different animal and world indeed. There's something lurking in the bushes of this forest of fear. But between the trees Garland garnishes these woods with color and cinematic beauty not seen this green since the amazing anime of Japan's 'In The Garden Of Words', whose rain storm swept Tokyo looks so life like you can't tell the difference between pictures of the real city today and the anime. Kaleidoscopic cell structures pierce your pupils too, as this visual and visceral feast of the senses and sensibilities touches you right on your nerve that is shred in the slow burn of this thrilling and terrifyingly compelling, vein taught thread of narrative. It's kind of like the raw feeling of pulling the ripped, loose skin from under your fingernail until it excruciatingly won't stop. Does that crawlingly remind you of the 'Black Swan'? Well with even more animalistic darkness dancing around her, one of today's best (albeit still so underrated), Natalie Portman delivers a powerhouse performance of tortured guilt and nuanced loneliness. Like the trials of the clinically calculated, glass of water coldness of the hazmat surrounded interview room she is surveyed and subjected in. This 'Jane' is more than her gun. Or the hammer of Marvel if fans ever get their wish to see her Jane Foster take over as the female 'Thor'. This amazing actress has better tools to bear and in this method of madness that is true fear itself, she sends shivers like she did in the memory of JFK for last years haunting 'Jackie' Best Actress worthy biopic epic. Her complex yet straight-forward characterization is also symbolic in showing us what great, redefining science ficion really is all about. Whether from original author Philip K. Dick to revolutionary filmaker Neil Blomkamp. Symbolic in that the inventive and inspired ideas of this genre really play background to the makings and morals of the metaphors that apply to the real world right now and what's to come if we continue on this same, worn path with footprints ahead of us.

Garland's garden of worlds has more to it than all this however in the wonder of this all women epic expedition that breaks ground without screaming from the tree tops about it. Legendary 'The Hateful Eight' star Jennifer Jason Leigh is unsettingly brilliant as a potent psychologist who truly gets under the skin of people who aren't even her patients. But oh how she tries to psychoanalyze them. Maybe not in the same hypnotic, by the VanderMeer book way, but this mind manipulation is still as maddening for the cinema crowd. Joining Portman's biologist and Leigh's psychologist is 'Eat Pray Love' star Tuva Novotvy's geologist. And the actress who served up substance in the 'Borg vs McEnroe' doubles biopic rocks here too, seeing more than granite once the dust settles. But the real standouts are the physicist and medic played by two of the best young actresses around today, Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez respectively. 'Creed's' Thompson whose career after her Valkyrie character in 'Thor-Ragnarok' is about to hit an avenging 'Infinity' gives us her deepest and best yet as a tortured, sincere soul with strength in all the pain she has gone through and survived. Whilst 'Jane The Virgin' star Gina Rodriguez who made the move to movies with one of Mark Wahlberg and Pete Berg's more recent, real life collaborations, 'Deepwater Horizon' steals the show as a medic whose trying to stitch what's happening together faster than her body is falling apart from within. She owns one particular breakdown scene with breakneck, blood-curdling, terrifying tension. Going back to 'Interstellar', David Gyasi who made his mark there plays a spanner in the works catalyst here. Whilst 'Doctor Strange' Avenger (also about to go to 'Infinity' and beyond war), 'Martian' and Philip K. Dick 'Electric Dreams' and 'Blade Runner 2049', '2036: Nexus Dawn' star Benedict Wong is on hazmat hand to help uncover this story in his own undeniable way. But out of all the men made in this movie it's 'Star Wars' star pilot Oscar Isaac who strikes the strongest chord, albeit so subtly, reuniting with Garland after the mania of 'Machina'. Arguably the greatest leading man working today not named DiCaprio takes a back seat somewhat but has a presence that haunts the entire movie. Like his returning husband character who is the only man to come back from an expedition to Area X after most of the units killed themselves, each other or simply got lost in the woods. But is he the same man? Cue Bryan Cranston in 'Electric Dreams' like Johnny Depp's 'The Astronauts Wife'. Physically he certainly is but like with anything in this looks deceiving genre psychologically plays a different story to the beautiful family making flashbacks that puncuate this picture. And Oscar plays is always award worthy perfectly. Isaac, indies leading mans isolated independence tugs at the soul of a weathered and torn man who can't comprehend, let alone get over what he's been through...if he can even move on at all. There's lessons to be learned and earned here if only we here in the U.K. like the U.S. could see it on the big screen where this vivid visual belongs. But even smartphone screened in the dark this film will leave you wired and primed to look over your shoulder. It shudders both in what you see and what you feel, giving you more than a bump in the night that will keep you losing sleep and sheep till morning light trying to figure it all out. Rocking you to your bones like a phosphorus grenade. This annihilates everything in it's wake, except one thing we all have at our core despite ourselves. The strive to survive. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Further Filming: 'Ex Machina', 'The Thing', 'Arrival'.