movie review - Annihilation
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
After an extremely long work week, I managed to sit down with a movie for the first time in a while. Happily, that was "Annihilation", a sci-fi story with a borderline fantasy theme. It's about a part of the continental US where something has changed. A veil of some sort has enveloped the area, and all of humanity's attempts to understand what's happening inside that area have failed. With the enveloped area slowly growing, the urgency is increasing and a team of scientists volunteers to follow the previous, military expeditions that have so far produced only one survivor and no insight whatsoever. What follows is an interesting scenario in which the scientists discover that they are changing, physically as well as psychologically.
Will the (all-female) troupe of scientists prevail? Will Earth be saved? Or will whatever is happening consume the planet? This movie is a very welcome break from sky-beam, fist-fight tropes and "cinematic universes". I enjoyed the story, the characters, the visual effects and the score, the spare story-telling and the consistently taut but compelling tone.
Strongly recommended.