![]() ![]() Like Arrival (or Ex Machina, for that matter), Annihilation is a thoughtful, philosophical movie, more interested in the nature of humanity and the urges that drive us rather than in who lives or dies. But Garland’s film more closely resembles Denis Villeneuve’s recent science fiction hit Arrival, another slow, airless, fascinating film pocked with moments of sudden explosive action. Annihilation follows the familiar form of science fiction horror found in films from Alien to The Cloverfield Paradox, with a cast of characters in isolation, slowly being picked off by a force they don’t understand. ![]() There are specific principles at work in the phenomena Lena’s troop finds, but they unfold in a variety of quietly unsettling ways, suggesting a wide range of potential ugly deaths ahead. But mostly, Garland builds up the uncanniness and the dread factor of the world inside The Shimmer. Some even come through conventional action sequences. There certainly are surprises in Annihilation’s slow, creepy march toward the sole-survivor situation laid out in the opening scene. ![]()
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