No, I haven’t seen Deadpool 2 yet. I was on my way to see it yesterday and got caught in town by a bridge opening… but soon I promise. I consoled myself with going home and watching the recently released n BluRay film Annihilation starring Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac. Annihilation is the story of a research team of women who enter a mysterious area dubbed the shimmer. The shimmer seems to have been caused by an asteroid crashing into the earth and has been growing and consuming the area around the crash site for several years. Multiple military teams have entered prior to this group, and none have returned except for Portman’s husband Isaac. Portman plays a former US Army soldier and current college biology professor who specializes in the study of cancer cells. This becomes important to the story when her team is inside the shimmer and begins to notice biological mutations to the flora and fauna and physical changes to themselves.
Annihilation is something of a strange film. There were several times throughout the movie when I was perplexed by what was happening and why. I’m still unsure about the movie’s ending and what the overall message the filmmakers were trying to convey might be. It was highly rated by film critics, contains some sexually suggestive scenes, and several scenes of violence and gore. For scifi suspense I don’t think it quite rises to the level of Arrival from last year, but it is probably worth a rental from Redbox if you like this kind of film.
As I’ve found with most Hollywood films, there’s a spiritual side to Annihilation as well. Note this conversation between Portman’s character and Isaac’s:
Kane: I was just looking at the moon. It’s always so weird seeing it like that in the daylight.
Lena: Like God made a mistake. Left the hall lights on.
Kane: God doesn’t make mistakes. That’s… somewhat key to the whole “being a god” thing.
Lena: Pretty sure he does.
Kane: You know he’s listening right now, don’t you?
Lena is the biologist and yet she believes that God makes mistakes. Kane, the soldier doesn’t seem to agree and even invokes God’s presence. This is an interesting dichotomy, but unfortunately it goes nowhere in the movie other than to make one wonder if the shimmer is God’s will or something else. There’s also an exchange between Lena and Dr. Ventress discussing the differences between biology and psychology in human nature, suicide, and self-destructiveness. Many of the events and mutations seem to point to the shimmer being some kind of cosmic cancer infecting the planet and recreating it in its own image, although this is never stated out loud.
While I did enjoy Annihilation as a film, its ending left me a little dissatisfied in its ambiguity. I’d be giving too much away in trying to explain that other than to say, even in reflection I don’t know who won this story. Like I said, it’s worth a rental if this is your kind of movie.
revdon64 