Annihilation (2018)

Adventure, Drama, Fantasy

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A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don't apply.

Director:

 Alex Garland

Writers:

 Alex Garland (written for the screen by), Jeff VanderMeer (based on the novel by)

Stars:

 Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson

1h 55min 

Annihilation is a 2018 science-fiction psychological horror film written and directed by Alex Garland, and based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. It stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac. The story follows a group of military scientists who enter "The Shimmer", a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating landscapes and transmogrifying creatures.

The film was released theatrically in North America by Paramount Pictures on February 23, 2018, and digitally (by Netflix) in a number of other countries on March 12, 2018.^[6] It received critical praise, particularly for its visuals, performances, direction, and thought-provoking story, and has grossed $40 million at the box office.

Cast overview:
	Natalie Portman	...	Lena
	Benedict Wong	...	Lomax
	Sonoya Mizuno	...	Katie (Med Student)
	David Gyasi	...	Daniel
	Oscar Isaac	...	Kane
	John Schwab	...	Paramedic
	Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Dr. Ventress
	Gina Rodriguez	...	Anya Thorensen
	Tuva Novotny	...	Cass Sheppard
	Tessa Thompson	...	Josie Radek
	Sammy Hayman	...	Mayer
	Josh Danford	...	Shelley
	Kristen McGarrity	...	Lena Double

Plot

At "Area X", a government facility along the southern coast, a cellular biology professor and former U.S. Army soldier, Lena, undergoes a quarantined debriefing about an expedition into an anomalous electromagnetic field nearby known as "The Shimmer". Lena and her husband were the only survivors of the expedition.

In flashback, Lena's husband Kane, an Army Special Forces soldier, returns without warning to their home after having gone missing on a mission a year earlier. He remembers nothing of that time and his health is rapidly deteriorating. Government security forces intercept Lena and Kane on their way to a hospital, and take them to Area X. The Shimmer had begun to spread near there three years earlier. Back in the present, Dr. Ventress, a psychologist, recruits Lena to her ongoing investigation, explaining that military teams, including the one with Kane, ventured into the Shimmer to reach the lighthouse in which the Shimmer was first observed. No one except Kane—who is now in a coma—ever returned.

Lena joins Dr. Ventress on a research expedition into the Shimmer which also comprises Josie, a physicist, Cass, a geomorphologist, and Anya, a paramedic. Lena does not reveal to her new teammates that Kane is her husband.

Guidance technology fails; the team forgets extensive chunks of time; and a mutated alligator attacks Josie. The team rescues her, and learns that the alligator shows signs of having been hybridized with a shark. Along with plants they have observed, this indicates that the Shimmer causes rapid, unchecked mutation in living things. At an abandoned military base, the team discovers evidence of Kane's expedition. Video played back from a memory card shows Kane cutting open the abdomen of a living, cooperative teammate to reveal that his intestines are writhing like a snake. The teammate's body is still in the base, barely recognisable from continued mutation. That night, the base's perimeter fence is torn open while Ventress and Lena stand guard. A mutated, bear-like creature drags Cass away screaming. The following morning, the team finds Cass's boot. Lena investigates alone, and discovers Cass's mutilated corpse. She returns to the team and informs them of Cass's death.

The expedition continues toward the lighthouse at the center of the Shimmer. The team finds a settlement filled with human-shaped plants, which causes Josie to hypothesize that the Shimmer acts on organisms in the same way as a prism distorts and refracts light. The team realizes they are rapidly physically changing as well. That night, Anya, paranoid after having discovered that Kane was Lena's husband, attacks and restrains Lena, Josie, and Dr. Ventress, and accuses the group of killing Cass. Anya hears what sounds like Cass screaming for help outside, and goes to investigate. The bear-like creature that killed Cass enters the house, and the team realizes the creature's growl now mimics Cass's screams; it kills Anya, and attacks Lena before Josie shoots and kills it.

The team discusses turning back; instead, Dr. Ventress chooses to continue without Lena or Josie. Josie abandons the mission, and appears to mutate into a human-shaped plant. Lena reaches the lighthouse, and sees a number of human skeletons arranged into a display outside it. Inside, she discovers an incinerated corpse, a video camera, and a hole in the floor. The camera's footage shows Kane ranting about the Shimmer's effects on him, urging someone offscreen to find Lena, and finally committing suicide with a white-phosphorus grenade. Kane's doppelgänger then appears in the frame.

Lena descends into the hole in the floor and finds Dr. Ventress, who tells her the forces at work in the Shimmer will soon become all-consuming. Dr. Ventress disintegrates into a glowing, mandelbulb-like nebulous structure that absorbs a drop of blood from Lena's face and becomes a humanoid entity that mirrors Lena's every motion and eventually transforms into an identical copy of her. Lena exploits its mimicking behavior to set an active phosphorus grenade in its hands, then flees. The creature is set alight by the grenade. Flames engulf the lighthouse; various structures in the area collapse, and the Shimmer fades to nothing.

Lena's debriefing concludes; she reunites with Kane, who has recovered rapidly with the disappearance of the Shimmer. She asks him whether he is the real Kane, to which he replies, "I don't think so." He asks her if she is Lena, to which she does not respond. As the two embrace, their irises shimmer and rapidly change color.

                                               Sources : IMDb , Wikipedia , Youtube 

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