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.

Ragnarok finds humor at the world's end

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) in Thor: Ragnarok. Image courtesy Disney.

Thor: Ragnarok is a weird movie. It's weird because it's a movie about Norse mythology that focuses more on technological marvels than the mythology inherent to its title. It's weird because of the dramatic tonal shift from the other Thor movies. And it's super weird because Jeff Goldblum shows up with shockingly blue facial hair and literally melts a man with a stick. Ragnarok is a trip, but it is one heck of a journey to a place more bizarre than other Marvel movies have ventured.

What's so hard to reconcile about Ragnarok is how lightly the movie takes the end of a world. Superhero movies are all about saving planets from destruction while making sure the people are safe and the damage is minimal. A few jokes are sprinkled in to ensure the story doesn't get too dark, but for the most part the superhero as savior concept is a foundation for a lion's share of comic book-related lore. Except for Ragnarok, in which the threat of the destruction of Asgard starts as a gag between Thor (Chris Hemsworth reprising his role) and a skeleton just above a pit of fire. It sets the rhythm for the rest of the movie, with the comedy taking a precedence over the gravity of the situation the characters face. Everyone cracks a few jokes, from the naturally talkative Loki (Tom Hiddleston), to the goddess of death/destroyer of world Hela (Cate Blanchett), to the otherwise stern Heimdall (Idris Elba), to the fallen Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). Even the Hulk, the Incredible Hulk and not Bruce Banner (both of whom are versions of Mark Ruffalo) showcases something resembling a sense of humor.

And you know what? It's actually kind of glorious in its own way. The sense of humor is akin to what’s found in the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Ragnarok makes it unique by changing the context to make the jokes a greater joke itself. Ragnarok is a slightly different family tree as Dr. Strangelove, in which the biggest laugh is earned by the insanity of the movie mocking the inherent somber nature of earth's destruction. The story Ragnarok tells is just as dark as Dr. Strangelove, but with brighter colors and Disney's stamp of approval. That also means the Thor movie can't be as nihilistic as Dr. Strangelove is; it is still a blockbuster first and foremost. But director Taika Waititi and the screenwriters push Ragnarok further than the other Thor films to do what the best MCU movies have done; make a movie with their own imprint on it. There are, again, limits to how far creatively the filmmakers can get with the Marvel movies – an entire cinematic universe is at stake – but Waititi and company turned a Thor movie into a comedy. Like the excellent Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the very good to great Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Ragnarok stands on its own as a piece of cinema.

Still, there remains a bit lacking with Ragnarok that pushes it a step or two down from the aforementioned Marvel movies and puts it more on par with the fun Spider-Man: Homecoming and Iron Man 3. There is what should amount to a great story arc involving Thor and the uncovering of his father Odin's (Anthony Hopkins) past, something that should force the mighty god of thunder to confront his own background and the demons his father has wrought upon his people. It's a Shakespearean bit in line with the first Thor movie, with the evil Odin committed living far beyond the good he brought in. Ragnarok barely touches the surface of this story, having Thor just sort of go with the news that his father was a monster for a very long time. That could be marked as a sign of character growth, but Thor does drop a few tears for Odin early on, and the amount of time the movie spends reconciling Odin's history is disappointingly minimal.

But the baseline for a quality superhero movie – good action, likable characters, expansive world building – remains intact, and the goofy nature and general oddness of the situation only add to those key elements. To repurpose another classic literary line, Ragnarok opts to end the world not with a whimper but with a bang and a lot of laughs along the way toward doom.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 130 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: As with every Marvel film, everyone who has ever watched a movie from the MCU and wants to keep up with the ongoing story.

Take the whole family?: Really depends on how OK the parents are with a lot of violence but little blood to show for it. A couple years under the PG-13 mark should be fine.

Theater or Netflix?: It's fun for a trip to the theater, although the 3D isn't really worth it though.

How has 2017 been for the MCU?: Pretty great. Despite releasing three movies, two of which were a second and a third installment to long-running series, this is the first time in a while that Marvel fatigue hasn't hit that hard. It helps that the three movies released were good and different enough to offer some separation to the weary viewers. It also offers some hope for 2018, with the release of Ryan Coogler's Black Panther and the probably stupidly stuffed Avengers: Infinity War.

Watch this as well?: Along with the other MCU entries, comedian/author John Hodgman has a comedy special devoted to the impending Ragnarok, called John Hodgman: Ragnarok, that is quirky and hilarious, highlighted by his decision to send a kid out in the cold to wait for doom to come