ANNIHILATION

In Annihilation, a biologist, psychologist, physicist, anthropologist, and paramedic enter the shimmer — a mysterious and expanding sector marked by increasingly unnerving mutations. The shimmer is full of contradictions, beauty and terror coexisting. Rainbow light touches down on snarled branches. A rainbow beach and its crystalline trees would be enchanting if not for the presence of human bones, arranged as if an intentional warning. The multicolored flowers that spackle the shimmer’s landscapes become more horrifying once they coexist with fragmented human remains.

The shimmer distorts the team’s memory. Days become months. It’s dreamlike, but it quickly gives way to nightmarish gore. What starts as a fairly straightforward sci-fi horror hybrid gradually becomes something much weirder.

Natalie Portman is magnetic as the film’s protagonist. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s very recognizable delivery adds to the foreboding tone that looms over the shimmer. Tessa Thompson gives a much different — but still great — performance than her usual, playing a character that’s more timid and uncertain than her other recent roles. Tuva Novotny is subtle, but her characterization of stifled fear is affecting. And then Gina Rodriguez steals the show with a standout performance. And no I don’t just say that because she plays a confident and muscly soft butch lesbian with an undercut who opens a beer bottle in that way where you slam it against a table edge with your hand. But yes, those details are also important!!!!
(Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Autostraddle)