Annihilation tense and terrifying

Natalie Portman in Annihilation. Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Annihilation comes ever so close to being a brilliant piece of science fiction. The movie is a fascinating existential thriller overloaded with tension and hopelessness to go along with its strange creatures and otherworldly locale. It has a lot to say about the mind, body, and soul, but it loses itself when it speaks as often as it does without allowing the wonder to creep in. Instead of inspiring thoughts and allowing the imagination to go wild, Annihilation tries to control the conversation, much to its detriment.

Words convey only so much for a science fiction movie; exploration in every sense of the word is of greater importance. To his credit, writer/director Alex Garland's, who adapted the eponymous novel, has the structure for the type of adventure needed for Annihilation to succeed. Garland keeps things simple with the story, trimming the novel to focus on five women assigned to explore a great unknown hiding behind a strange shimmering wall. Four of them (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny) are assigned to investigate the source of the shimmer that is constantly consuming more and more land. The fifth, Lena (Natalie Portman), enters to find out what happened to her husband (Oscar Isaac) and to atone for her past misdeeds. It's just five women, walking through a new world where things are just close enough to normal to seem familiar, yet are still miles away from being normal. And it doesn't take long for things to start falling apart.

Annihilation reaches into the basic fears people have about themselves and their identities and brings those fears right in front of the viewers' eyes. The body horror is rendered more terrifying by the existential crisis surrounding Lena and her comrades. They become lost to something greater than they are, begin to lose the little things that make them human, which in turn makes them, and the audience by extension, even more confused and frightened. What they discover is the horror of the great unknown, the absence of certainty and the uncontrollable shifts in their being that breaks them down from the inside out. It makes for an intense movie, and Garland cranks the suspense up to around a 12 by the middle of the second act. Annihilation becomes really, really uncomfortable right around the time when the really bad things begin to happen to the protagonists, and it gets downright frightening in one really discomfiting scene in which nature attacks with shrieks and wails and teeth and nails. Twenty years ago that scene would have led to numerous nightmares on my end; now it'll be just a night or two of bad dreams.

That scene is followed by an explanation for the cause of the fear, and the definition is somewhat terrifying in its own right. But it is part of a larger struggle Garland has with Annihilation and balancing how much of an explanation he owes to the audience for the movie's oddities. In lieu of showing and implying, Garland has characters speak often in exposition for the audience's benefit, which results in emotional removal from the oddities taking place on screen. The problem extends to the narrative structure, which greatly reduces the urgency and ambiguity Annihilation strives to attain. It undercuts the film's best parts; the deterministic moments when the characters trudge forward with the same amount of uncertainty as the viewer

Garland ultimately shoots himself in the foot by keeping viewers at least a step or two outside of the world he built, although that might have been a little intentional. For a Sci-Fi movie about an uncontrolled mutation the visualization is a bit lackluster. Annihilation depicts an Earth slowly but surely morphing into something more alien but still slightly connected to the human world. Yet the film's environment doesn't feel overly alien because viewers are not indoctrinated into the bizarre terrestrial version of our planet. Annihilation is so consumed by its explanations it fails to bring viewers along with it into the great unknown. Only the characters are allowed to get lost in this world; the audience is stuck watching from a few miles away from the safety of their seats.

It's difficult not to wish for a little more out of something as outright weird and perturbing as Annihilation. With a better sense of wonder, this movie would be magnificent instead of just interestingly bizarre.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

 

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 115 minutes

Genre: Sci-Fi

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Target audience: Sci-Fi fans and people who were really into Ex Machina.

Take the whole family?: This is way too eerie and bloody for kids.

Theater or Netflix?: Theater isn't vital, but it's definitely worth a matinee trip.

How scary is this movie?: It isn't quite traditional horror, but the overarching vibe is terrifying. The scene referenced in the review is bothersome on many levels, as are the fates of a few of the characters. People who are bothered by jump scares and more traditional frights will be fine; it's the folks who overthink movie universes who will receive a spate of bad dreams.

Watch this as well?: Annihilation shares a few similarities with Apocalypse Now, with both targeting the thin line between sanity and mayhem. There are also a few similarities with John Carpenter's The Thing, which is always great to watch.

Last Jedi an unpredictable adventure

Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Image courtesy Disney.

Star Wars as a franchise has always worked best when hope is challenged by impending darkness. Hope without challenge is meaningless; hope needs to be earned through tribulation to be worth a damn, the bleakness countered by faith in one's friends, allies, and one's cause. Star Wars: The Last Jedi favors that ambiguity, putting its heroes in a desperate situation, with only their hope and faith in one another and their cause to lean on. The film rarely provides assurances that the hope they have is justified, that it will result in a happy ending for all involved. It's also why this movie is the first Star Wars entry in three decades to feel unpredictable.
This is a very good thing. The new Star Wars needs to separate itself from 40 years of cinematic history to be worth anything going forward. The only way to continue producing interesting stories is to take risks, through a few curveballs into the very well-established formula and keep the audience guessing on how the fate of the Star Wars galaxy will go. The nostalgia that carried The Force Awakens (which earns justifiable criticism for aping A New Hope) and influences Rogue One won't last forever; younger audiences need their own characters to like. Instead of recreating what worked before, writer/director Rian Johnson takes a few chances with Last Jedi to take some ownership of the material and ensure this isn't a carbon copy of Empire Strikes Back.
Last Jedi shares a few traits with Empire Strikes Back, notably by showing the rebels in their darkest moment. Hope is really the only thing Resistance members Leia (Carrie Fisher, RIP), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) have as they try to escape the evil First Order led by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Hope is what pushes Rey (Daisy Ridley) to the ends of the galaxy to recruit the bitter Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to the Resistance cause. Hope comes despite the Resistance being hopelessly outgunned by an impending force of destruction and despite little evidence that the soul of Kylo Ren can be saved from the dark side.
As the film makes clear, hope is a tough thing to hold onto. As the Resistance gets closer and closer to its destruction, its members have to be reminded frequently to maintain their hope and faith, to not succumb to the daunting odds mounting against them. Last Jedi is the rare Star Wars film to not adhere blindly to that sense of hope though; even for characters from a galaxy far, far away that aren’t technically human, it remains natural and vital even to question one's faith. Hope is put on trial, the characters weigh the faith they have in themselves, their friends, and their cause, and the process to a verdict is painful and dangerous.
Johnson does a lot of house cleaning in the two and a half hours of Star Wars time he has to work with. The puzzle box concept J.J. Abrams crammed into The Force Awakens is stripped away, to the great benefit of the franchise and for audiences frustrated by the that movie’s unnecessary ambiguity. The key mystery in that movie is granted a simple resolution that serves as a reminder of how greatness can come from even the humblest of beginnings. The victories earned by the Resistance are always Pyrrhic, good enough to render hope from but still damaging for a cause that can't afford to lose that much. The Last Jedi fights against the supposed goodness of the Jedi as well, doing more to question the wisdom of the Jedi Order than the prequels did in three movies. The Last Jedi makes a very convincing argument for ending the Jedi line; it's only Rey's hope in what the Jedi could accomplish that makes the Jedi Order possibly worth redeeming.
There remains some value in the old ways for Rey and the Star Wars franchise. Last Jedi posits a need for legends and heroes to inspire faith and hope to spur a rebellion against an unrelenting evil. The past is there to serve as a guiding light for the present, to give the new characters a path forward in the darkness as they find their own way toward salvation. As it is for the franchise too, which slowly but surely will separate itself from the past and find some hope of its own.

Review: Four out of Five Stars



Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13
Run time: 153 minutes
Genre: Science Fiction

Ask Away

Target audience: The legions upon legions of Star Wars fans who will make Disney a whole ton of money this month.

Take the whole family?: Families will bring their kids regardless because Star Wars, but this could bother some of the really young kids. The length might also turn them away.

Theater or Netflix?: The effects are more than good enough to deserve a cinema trip. Whether it's worth paying for the 3D and IMAX is up for debate.

Where does this rank on the Star Wars pantheon?: Last Jedi still doesn't hit the mark of either Empire Strikes Back or A New Hope. I do put it ahead of the prequels, The Force Awakens, and the very good Rogue One, and as an adult I find Last Jedi to be more interesting and complex than Return of the Jedi.

Watch this as well?: Enough of the Star Wars franchise is good enough to merit another watch, especially Empire Strikes Back. Also check out a couple of writer/director Rian Johnson's previous works, Brick and Looper.