Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Annihilation (2018)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 02-26-2018, 07:42 PM:

A group of scientists venture into a part of the Louisiana Gulf Coast that has become mysteriously cut off behind a shimmering veil. Unbeknown to the rest of the party is that the mission biologist is the wife of the only person to return alive from the previous twelve expeditions. At the Landmark 57West Cinemas, New York City.

*****

Like The Cloverfield Paradox before it, this picture was produced by Paramount, who then apparently lost faith in the finished product. It is getting a barely-supported North American release and is being shuffled off to Netflix in other territories. They should have more faith in the audience, especially after their Arrival, another very good and intelligent science-fiction film, became a decent sized hit and Oscar contender.

This picture is not quite as good, but it's close. Knowing that the strange “Southern Reach” is expanding, and that no-one save one person has every come back before, a team of scientists venture behind the glowing veil in an effort to get to the lighthouse at the center where the strange phenomena began. Along the way they encounter bizarre mutations of nature both beautiful and terrifying; people that have become trees, animals that have been crossbred into biologically impossible combinations, and other grotesqueries. They seem to think that something behind the barrier either killed the previous exposition members, or caused them to kill themselves, and the biologist played by Natalie Portman is determined to find out why her surviving husband came back so . . . different.

This is a visually stunning movie, and it has probably the best production sound mix I’ve heard recently. The actresses that play the all-female crew are all top-notch, and Jennifer Jason Leigh is especially good as the dour mission leader. This deserves to be seen in a theatre with great sound, but considering the way Paramount has dumped it you’d better hurry if it sounds interesting to you at all.

I’m starting to wonder if this will be the new paradigm for Netflix: dumping ground for studio projects that get made where they can’t figure out how to market them.