The most eerie and memorable element of Alex Garland's new science-fiction thriller, Annihilation, is its ominous, bone-chilling musical score (by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow). It exudes a spellbinding aura that completely envelopes the viewers' mind and soul with a final act - in which its heroine, Lena (Natalie Portman), faces an extra terrestrial clone of herself - that can only be described as the modern equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey's legendary star-gate sequence. And despite of what you may have heard about this movie, it's true: your experience of it will greatly be enhanced by either hallucinatory or psychoactive drugs of the soft variety, to say the least.
After her husband (Oscar Isaac) returns from a year long mission and develops a life-threatening illness, Lena, along with four other female scientists, enters an area called "The Shimmer", where strange extra-terrestrial organisms seems to have taken over the local flora and fauna. Slowly but surely, the women are eliminated by The Shimmer's local mutations, and when Lena, at long last, reaches the Lighthouse where the strange occurrences first originated, the mind bending, head scratching conclusion will surely divide the audiences. The last close-up is as enigmatic as it is satisfactory, and Annihilation, despite its imperfections, is still an intellect-challenging ride well worth taking. Just don't expect it to have all the answers, and you just may not hate it at all.
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