After directing Ex Machina (and writing
Dredd and 28 Days Later…), I’m down to
watch anything Alex Garland does. So, understandably, I’m rather jacked for his
upcoming adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s best-selling novel,
Annihilation. I haven’t read the book, but I love that
Garland’s sticking around the sci-fi end of the pool, and the first teaser
trailer looks very much like a movie I want to watch.
From what we see in this trailer, the easy parallel to draw for
Annihilation is Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival.
But while they fall into the same general category of intelligent, thoughtful
science fiction dealing with an encounter with the unknown, that’s about where
the similarities end to my understanding. The books have garnered comparisons
to 2001 and H.P. Lovecraft, so make of that what you will.
The synopsis is simple and suitably esoteric:
A biologist's husband disappears. She puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not quite find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor.
That doesn’t say much, but it fits with the cryptic tease we
get in this trailer. Just as exciting as the subject matter, Garland also
assembled an incredible cast, one primarily fronted by fantastic women. Natalie
Portman plays the Biologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh plays the Psychologist, Gina Rodriguez plays the Anthropologist, Tessa Thompson is the Surveyor, and Oscar Isaac shows up as the Biologist’s husband.
Garland also reteams with cinematographer Rob Hardy, who
lensed Ex Machina, and that was a gorgeous movie to look at—Hardy’s
also working on Mission: Impossible 6, so he’s set to have a
big 2018.
Annihilation is the first of VanderMeer’s
Southern Reach Trilogy, followed by
Authority and Acceptance, which revolves
around a secret agency of the same name. Paramount nabbed the rights to the
series, so assuming the first film succeeds, we’ll likely see the next two installments
on the big screen before long.
Annihilation opens on February 23, 2018.
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