Annihilation
Annihilation
6.888%67%
A biologist's husband disappears. She puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and a linguist.
Razorbitz reviewedFebruary 22, 2025
A strange kalaedoscopic nightmare that leaves fingerprints in your dreams.
Alex Garland; rarely does this guy miss. The review I'm writing is for the slightly tweaked fan edit released a year or so ago, but personally there weren't any major changes that require this as both the original and fan edit are superb. This was my second watch, and it hit almost as good as the first time; while there are scenes that stick out in peoples minds more than others, the entire film from beginning to end is an excersize in environmental story telling that never failed to make me feel like I was looking into another dimension. This time around I had an OLED, and this may have been the first movie where I realized just how essential it is to watch a film like this in full 4k; there are so many little nuggets of horror and shimmers of color packed into every shot once the barrier is crossed that I found myself experiencing a trance-like state during the longer shots of the environments. Even with the visual brilliance achieved here, the narrative delivers a surprising round of performances in a narrative rife with oddness and uncertainty. Based on series of books I've taken the time to read before this, it only borrows the surface of visual elements and stands entirely on its own while still delivering the paranoid horror of a gorgeous incomprehensible world.
For me though, its all about that ending. Watch, and you'll see why. One of the best science fiction films in the past decade and shouldn't be missed.