“Are you Lena?”

From Annihilation.

There is a quarantined area that the government has labeled Area X.  Multiple expeditions have been sent in to try to discover the cause and, hopefully, the remedy to the mysterious area.  What happens to the members of the expeditions remain a mystery since none have returned except for one soldier (Oscar Isaac) that returns home to his wife, Lena (Natalie Portman) after he was missing for a year.  Quickly after he arrives home, it becomes obvious that something is very wrong with him, both mentally and physically.  In an attempt to understand both what happened to her husband and what is Area X, Lena joins the next expedition going beyond the shimmering border.  A 5-woman team consisting of a psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez), an anthropologist (Tuva Novotny), a physicist (Tessa Thompson), and biologist Lena head into Area X to analyze and document the Area’s elements in their respective fields.  While the women were required to undergo training before their arrival, nothing could prepare them for the mysterious horrors they discover.  A rapid series of deaths, attacks, and discoveries threatens Lena on every side and drives her closer to the heart of Area X.  Lena quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems and she can only trust herself, but as she dives deeper into the mystery of Area X she begins to even question her ability to do that.

The scenery and special effects are breathtaking, captivating, and terrifying all at the same time; this unknown world that is strange and yet similar is subtly injected into almost every scene through lighting and CGI.  This is not the movie to watch if you do not like unanswered questions, because (like the book) it creates more questions than answers, even though (also like VanderMeer’s novel) it does bring a sense of closure to the story.  While advertised as a horror movie, the science fiction elements greatly overtake the film, with the exception of a few brutal scenes.  Annihilation forces the audience (and the characters) to ask the essential question is there more to life than just survival?

| Rated: R | Running Time: 115 minutes |Genre: thriller/sci-fi/movie adaptation |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 7 of 10|Nudity: 1 of 10|Sexuality: 3 of 10|Gore: 8 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|