The Film (5/5)

    Lena (Natalie Portman) is a grieving wife and a biologist at John Hopkins' as her military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac)  went on a classified mission over a year ago, and never returned. She had long given up hope on ever seeing him, when one night he appears again out of nowhere, however, his health is in extreme decline. She calls an ambulance, which is quickly intercepted by  an anonymous government entity who takes them to a government facility known as the Southern Reach.

     This facility is on the boundary with an alien atmosphere known as "The Shimmer", which has begun to take over a small National Park size population area, but is getting larger every day and is threatening to over take their facility, the nearby city, and possibly the world. Expeditions have been sent into the Shimmer, but only Kane has returned, and of course not in remotely good shape. Lena agrees to enter the Shimmer with a team of 4 other scientists in the hopes of discovering what happened to Kane. However, the influence of the place on the group begins to immediately happen, as time and biology begin to distort, and strange entities begin to make themselves known and begin to kill the members of the group.

     Annihilation is based on the novel by Jeff Vandermeer, as a adaptation accurate to the source, I cannot be certain as I have yet to read the book (I will be getting on that soon). However, after reading a synopsis the main plot points seem to match up. The reason I preface with this is, is simply because when watching Annihilation I could not help, but notice that although Annihilation is an adaptation of an existing source, it seems to take its primary influence from the science fiction work of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky specifically Stalker, and at times especially in the more abstract moments of the film's third act Solaris.

      I won't go and call Annihilation derivative for re-using Tarkovsky-esque elements, rather it seems to take ideas and visuals from the Russian auteur’s films and recast them in a new way.  For years I've said instead of remaking a film, why not take the elements that are loved about a certain film, and make them into something new? That is what director Garland did here, he made a loving homage to the science fiction skewing work of Tarkovsky, while also creating something that feels new and intelligent, and was just compelling to watch all the way through.

       Annihilation is probably the best science fiction film to be released in years. And this is coming from an actual boom time for quality science fiction with film's like Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, among others. However, there is something of a methodical darkness to this film, an obsessive quality in the writing that I took to, in both the visuals and the writing. Annihilation shows moments of beauty within the Shimmer environment, but every moment of beauty is coated in some greater darkness, every moment of darkness has some buried deeper element within it. Also, the most disturbing elements are tweaked in such a way to make them more shocking and bizarre so that even the most jaded, can still feel the impact of them.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Paramount presents Annihilation in an excellent 2:39:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer that looks positively splendid. Detail is excellent throughout the presentation, colors are lush and pop throughout the film, and blacks are inky and deep.

    Audio is handled by a Dolby True HD 7.1 track in English. Everything comes through nicely, with dialogue, score, and ambient sound coming through crisp, loud, and clear, with excellent balance.

Extras (3/5)

    There are 3 2-part documentaries that deal with different facets of the production. They range from about 11-15 minutes each, and act as a nice supplement to the main feature.

Overall

    Alex Garland seems to be cornering the market as a maker of intelligent Sci-Fi between Annihilation and his prior film Ex Machina. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, and has a nice slate of bonus features. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.