3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, profanity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.23.18
Some say the world will end in
fire; some say in ice.
Author/editor/literary critic
Jeff VanderMeer apparently prefers cellular madness.
 |
| After narrowly surviving an encounter with an unexpectedly oversized alligator, cellular biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) is disturbed to find that its mouth contains far too many rows of teeth. |
His Nebula Award-winning 2014
novel, Annihilation, is — to say the least — a challenging but thoroughly
fascinating read.
Director/scripter Alex Garland’s
big-screen adaptation is thoughtful, absorbing, unsettling and even scary. For
a time.
Unfortunately, he lets everything
go to hell in the third act. And I don’t mean that in a positive way.
Certain science fiction films
suffer from this problem: a terrific premise and suspenseful development, with
— ultimately — nowhere to go. Garland’s take on Annihilation reminds me
strongly of 1974’s Phase IV, a low-budget little flick that began with a
similarly captivating premise but concluded with a nonsensically metaphysical
climax (literally) that only could have been concocted by somebody on
mind-altering substances.
The major problem here is that
Garland was hell-bent on delivering a resolution that’s wholly at odds with
VanderMeer’s novel ... which is only the first book in a trilogy. Garland’s
“solution” to this dilemma isn’t merely unsatisfying; it makes total hash of
what takes place during the first two acts.
Garland is best known as the
writer/director behind 2014’s brilliant Ex Machina, a deliciously unsettling
sci-fi saga that holds together superbly, up to a disturbing final scene that
perfectly enhances everything that has come before. Too bad he couldn’t bring
that rigorous logic and plot coherence to this one.
Former soldier-turned-cellular biologist
Lena (Natalie Portman) has mourned the loss of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac),
for a full year. Flashbacks and passing remarks reveal that he’s active
military, subject to abrupt special-ops missions that he’s not able to share
with his wife. Now long missing after having deployed on ... something ... Lena
reluctantly believes him dead.
Until he turns up in their
bedroom one day, disoriented and with no apparent memory of how he got there,
or where he has been, or who he was with, or ... anything.
