The internet is abuzz with news that Annihilation, the long-awaited film from Ex-Machina director Alex Garland finally got its first teaser trailer. It’s got eerie music, a melancholy feel, and a bluish haze that fuse together to give you an uneasy feeling. It’s sad. It’s scary. It’s everything.
Natalie Portman narrates the stunning sci-fi thriller. Her significant other (played by Oscar Isaac) is missing and appears to be in a coma. “Why did my husband volunteer for a suicide mission?” she wonders out loud.
Based on the first book in bestselling sci-fi author Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach Trilogy, the movie tells the story of a team of female scientists – a psychologist, biologist, surveyor, and anthropologist – sent on a space mission to rescue Oscar Isaac.
Back in 2016 when the project was first announced, we shared that: “They venture into uninhabited area name Area X after previous expeditions have suffered from unexplainable bouts of amnesia and premature deaths from cancer. Told through the biologist’s field journal, the journey quickly turns into a desperate bid for survival as the explorers enter a strange hypnotic state.”
The badass rescue team who shoot guns and encounter alien lifeforms is made up of Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Latina starlets Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson. It’s rare that Latina actresses get to play scientists or action stars, but in this movie they are both. It’s proof we need more filmmakers like Alex Garland in this world. Better yet, if movie studios gave women the chance to write and direct more science fiction and action flicks, we’d likely see more female-centered genre films in theaters.
Annihilation hits theaters on February 23, 2018.
[h/t: Indiewire]