Stop, Go, or Slow Down: “Annihilation”

This scene in Annihilation is a lot scarier than it looks.

Review embargo: a temporary hold on official (or unofficial) reviews for a movie. You can usually get a good idea of how people will react to a movie based on when the review embargo is lifted and critics are allowed to talk about it. If it is lifted a week in advance, or even further back, that’s usually a sign that the studio is confident that this movie will succeed and they want to get positive word-of-mouth circulating in order to build an audience of people who may have been on the fence before. If the embargo doesn’t lift until a day or two before release, that usually means the studio is not confident about the movie at all and they’re trying to bury it. And while these ideas are generally accurate, they are not immune to exception. Such an example is Annihilation, a case where not only was the embargo was lifted the day before release, but Paramount pulled the international distribution from theaters and shipped it over to Netflix. Was this a wise call, or is this movie actually good enough for the big screen?

The cast of Annihilation prepares to enter the Shimmer.

Very loosely based on the book of the same name, the film follows a biologist (Natalie Portman) who, seeking answers about the year-long disappearance and recent reappearance of her husband (Oscar Isaac), volunteers to be part of an expedition into Area X. This area is visually signified by the Shimmer, a boundary that has been slowly expanding from its point of origin, and inside it distorts and reflects genetic composition to merge different biological species together (this was made obvious by the visuals in the trailer). The other members of the expedition include an anthropologist (Tuva Novotny), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez), a physicist (Tessa Thompson), and a psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and their mission is to find a way to neutralize the Shimmer before its effect consumes and annihilates humanity.

The question in this scene of Annihilation is whether extreme change actually hurts the ecosystem.

So to answer the initial question, it’s really a little bit of both. But I mean that in the best way. This is a very intelligent and cerebral film as it never spoon feeds its audience the information. There are some things that obviously have to be spelled out through expositional dialogue, but it’s minimal. The rest is very visual. For example, you get one short speech in the beginning of the second act explaining that the Shimmer is altering DNA. Then throughout the rest of the movie you see the effects of that with shark teeth in an albino alligator or deer with flowery branches for antlers, visually demonstrating what was explained earlier. This is visual storytelling at its finest thanks to writer/director Alex Garland (Ex Machina), and there are even long stretches of film with no dialogue at all and just visuals that take what’s been established to the logical extreme. While it’s the film’s biggest strength, it’s also easy to see how casual audiences might get lost and lose the ability to follow the story somewhere down the line.

I have no idea what happened here in Annihilation, but it looks so gorgeous that part of me doesn’t care.

But whatever you think of the overall movie, the visuals do look amazing. The basic ideas are about metamorphosis and terraforming, which are normally portrayed in film as quick and violent transformations. In this film, however, the transformations are quite graceful, one in particular near the end of the second act where you don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late, but by that point you’re too entranced in the change to root against it. Conversely, there are still violent elements, particularly with the hybridized animals that lurk within the Shimmer. One in particular is especially terrifying. I remember holding my breath for the entire sequence when it showed up, and then releasing a deep breath when it was all over. Then there was still more movie left and I wanted it to keep going because I couldn’t get enough of these visuals. Every time the expedition went to a new location, it felt like a whole other world we were exploring, especially the closer to the center of Area X they got, and all of them were stunning to look at.

Less dialogue and exposition means more storytelling in Annihilation.

Now for all the praise I give the visuals and visual storytelling, this is not a perfect film. But I will say that my gripes are pretty minor. I didn’t care for the use of a song playing over certain sequences, there was a subplot that came out of nowhere and never really explored itself or had anything to do with the rest of the story and characters, and there is one plot point at the very end that I felt did no justice to everything that had been set up so brilliantly. But again, these are pretty minor. I also want to say that even though all of the actors deliver good performances, none of them really stand out among each other. It’s not like Ex Machina where Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac delivered great performances but Alicia Vikander blew them all out of the water, but rather every actor seemed here to be on equal footing with each other. This is not a bad thing, but it does mean that audiences aren’t going to remember any of these actors or characters when they think of the movie.

Natalie Portman (Black Swan) doesn’t know what she sees in Annihilation, much less if she believes it.

If you like hard science fiction, then this movie is for you. I hear the book is the first installment in a trilogy, and despite taking so many liberties it’s almost Annihilation in name only, I am interested to see if the studio makes any sequels and what they do with them. But whether they do or not, this is a beautiful-looking installment in Alex Garland’s filmography that will hopefully build a substantial audience on any platform.

Rating: GO

Stop, Go, or Slow Down: “Thor: Ragnarok”

Mark Ruffalo (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) barges out of the gate as the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok.

In the last five years or so, every studio in Hollywood has tried to start a shared cinematic universe, mostly to mixed results. Whether it’s new cinematic universes like the DCEU or the Dark Universe, or even long-established franchises like Star Wars and Transformers, everyone wants to not only get onboard the bandwagon, but force their way into the driver’s seat along with enough luggage to fill the Auto Train’s autoracks. Even though there have been a few hits along the way, most of the time we’re left wondering why they even bother making these movies. Then every few months, we get another entry in the everlasting Marvel Cinematic Universe that reminds us what everyone else is trying to copy, and Thor: Ragnarok of all movies has come to teach the world once again that Marvel is king.

Tom Hiddleston (Midnight in Paris) and Chris Hemsworth (Rush) must join forces once again as Loki and Thor in Thor: Ragnarok.

Set two years after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), the film once again stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, the Asgardian god of thunder, in the middle of a long journey through the cosmos to find the Infinity Stones (don’t ask, we’ll be here all day). His quest is interrupted when Thor encounters Hela (Cate Blanchett), the goddess of death, and is literally thrown to the other side of the known universe where he must find a way back to Asgard and stop Ragnarok, the end of all Asgardian civilization. Along the way, he must recruit old and new allies such as his adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), a distraught and alcoholic Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), and fellow Avenger the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).

Chris Hemsworth and Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption) as Thor and Surtur in a fight scene choreographed to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” in Thor: Ragnarok.

Look, I’m gonna say it right now, it’s a Marvel movie. As enjoyable as every Marvel movie is, each one has its share of problems that are common throughout the MCU, and Thor: Ragnarok is no exception. The two that stand out the most in this film are the villain and the score. I’ll start with the score because it is a nice homage to the first movie’s score, albeit as an 80’s retro remix. Having said that, it’s still not a very memorable score. I actually remember the score for Thor: The Dark World (2013) better because that theme was played before every MCU movie for a few years after, and I don’t see that happening with this one. I also didn’t care for the use of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”, as much as I loved hearing it in the trailer. That kind of soundtrack fits perfectly with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) when the tone and story are both established to fit in with it, but not so much during the opening action scene in Muspelheim or the climactic battle on the Bifrost Bridge.

Cate Blanchett (Carol) hams it up while Karl Urban (Dredd) looks on in Thor: Ragnarok.

As for the villain, it’s also a mixed bag. When I heard Cate Blanchett had been cast as Hela, the goddess of death, I was very excited. Whenever she walks into a room, she instantly commands the atmosphere without even trying. The way she walks, the sound of her voice, her speech patterns, all of those stellar qualities have propelled her to two Oscar wins, as well as a well-deserved status as one of the greatest actresses of our generation. Here, her talent is barely utilized. Her posture is great throughout, and the character fights with a graceful brutality that you don’t see often in superhero movies. But I feel like either the projector was sped-up for her scenes or she was talking much faster than normal because her elegance in voice was gone. I get that it’s a Marvel movie and she wanted to have fun, but you can take your time and savor the moment like an exquisite beef steak, which is exactly what the GODDESS OF DEATH would do in this movie.

From left-to-right: Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, and Tom Hiddleston in Thor: Ragnarok.

I feel like I just went on a rant there, so I’ll move over to the positives before the Internet assumes I hated this movie (spoilers: I really liked it). As always, Chris Hemsworth is the same likable, headstrong, one-note hero that we’ve come to love over time. Tom Hiddleston is still the same devious, sympathetic, charismatic trickster that we’ve come to love. Mark Ruffalo, now more than ever, carries Bruce Banner like he’s been through Hell and back and is both ready and hesitant to face the devil again. Franchise newcomers Tessa Thompson (Creed) and Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park) bring their own known and distinct acting styles to the characters of Valkyrie and the Grandmaster. May they never change.

Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo look nothing like themselves in Thor: Ragnarok.

Most everything else about this film is standard Marvel, so what is it that makes Thor: Ragnarok one of the best-reviewed superhero films of all time (93% on Rotten Tomatoes as I write this review)? I have two theories, and I’m inclined to agree with both of these common compliments myself. One is director Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows), who infuses the franchise with a new energy that Thor hasn’t seen when he’s not teaming up with the other Avengers. He brings a lot of comedy and fast-paced action to the mix, something that the Thor movies have struggled to balance in the past. The other is that, without giving too much away, there are actual consequences to just about every action that is made in this movie. Thor loses his hammer fifteen minutes in, then he has his hair chopped off by one of the best Stan Lee cameos ever, and that’s not even scratching the surface of it. By the time we see him in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Thor will be at a much different place than he was in his 2011 debut film, as will both Loki and the Hulk. Or maybe it’s because Natalie Portman (Black Swan) decided to sit this one out, I don’t know.

Chris Hemsworth unleashes maximum Thor-verdrive in Thor: Ragnarok.

Whatever the case may be, Thor: Ragnarok proves that Marvel is constantly finding new ways to stay fresh while also staying true to the tried-and-true formula that has worked for Marvel over the last ten years. Is it the best Marvel movie ever? No, and I wouldn’t even say it’s the best Thor movie. But it’s fun, funny, and full of the things we love about the MCU.

Rating: GO