“Annihilation” Review

Happy 2018!

It’s officially the new year when it comes to reviewing movies on my blog. And before I get into the review of this film, I’m gonna cheat a little bit—I’m gonna review The Cloverfield Paradox first.

In short, it was not good. I didn’t have much to say about it, which is why I decided not to write an official review about it (I’d give it a C/61). Overall, the movie had a lot of hype (bolstered by a pretty cool marketing campaign) but failed to live up to expectations. The main problem is that the film tries to mix a lot of sci-fi tropes from other great movies in the genre, and is met with very little success. The result is a muddled sci-fi film that does not have much to say, and does a disservice to a franchise that expected it to answer questions about the world they built instead of raising a ton of new ones. In that regard, The Cloverfield Paradox tried to play it safe by employing elements of critically acclaimed sci-fi movies while not really making its original subject matter interesting.

I mention The Cloverfield Paradox because Annihilation is pretty much the antithesis to that film. Annihilation puts itself way out there with some of the crazy concepts that it explores, and with it has yielded some very divisive reactions. Director Alex Garland, who worked on the fantastic Ex Machina, returns with another hard sci-fi film that encourages a LOT of discourse after the film, more so than your average movie in the genre. However, there’s a very fine line that Annihilation walks in that it’s not as ambiguous as 2001: A Space Odyssey (but is definitely inspired by this film a LOT) or as literal as Interstellar (not a knock on the film, I loved Interstellar). Garland’s film gives you a surprising amount of facts and details to make conclusions with, but the ending really hammers you with some next-level WTF material. Many people will be talking about what happens in the ending (I won’t spoil it obviously) but it’s already caused a lot of divisive reactions within the audience that’s seen it. I personally really enjoyed the ending, not because I understood it, but just because of how there’s room for a possible explanation that just requires a bit more digging.

Visually, this movie is fantastic. While the budget isn’t as big as other blockbusters, Garland’s team does a great job of really immersing you in the world of this film. Some of the visuals depicting the world is simultaneously breathtaking and horrifying. There’s such a distinct style to Garland’s movies, and it oozes in every frame. There is only one part of the movie where the visual effects kind of sucked me out of the movie, but I gradually bought into it as I began to embrace some of the movie’s concepts more.

The performances from the all-female cast was fantastic. Natalie Portman continues to be one of the finest female actors in the business today, and her lesser known co-stars Gina Rodriguez and Tuva Novotny are great as well. The only person I couldn’t really buy into was Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance, who plays the psychologist in the film.

The greatest strength of the film comes from the concepts that it adapted from the book. For those of you that don’t know, Annihilation is based off a book of the same name in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Aside from its core concepts, the book and the film are incredibly different. However, the principal themes and concepts that the book explores work excellently in the movie. I really don’t want to explain a lot of it because I truly think this movie is better going into it without knowing anything.

Like I said earlier, I think the last 10-20% of the movie is gonna put some casual moviegoers off. The ending is so wild and outrageous that it’s going to really put rub some people the wrong way. However, it impacted me in a way that, similarly to another film that I reviewed in It Comes at Night, it really made me want to learn more and find answers as opposed to hating the ambiguity behind it all. Garland expertly threads the needle in giving you enough information to draw your own conclusions, while still holding an air of mystery and intrigue. There’s always a gray area of whether or not a movie is brilliantly ambiguous or downright pretentious, but I think this leans more towards the former.

This is only Alex Garland’s second directorial effort, but I’m so, so, so excited for what he has in store. He’s one of the best minds working in Hollwood today, and, I hope that studios continue to give him money to tell his stories, because it doesn’t look like Annihilation is going to make much money based on the initial trajectory. If you are interested in a mind-bending sci-fi thriller that will cause you to think, then this film is definitely for you. The brilliant visuals coupled with great performances and insane scientific concepts make this movie a hard one to top as the year goes by.

Grade: A-/88

“Molly’s Game” Review

This is officially my last 2017 movie review! As tradition, I’ll post my top 10 right before the Oscars recapping my favorite films of the previous year, and man has it been a fantastic year. I’m glad that I was able to end the 2017 movie season with this film, because it was just one of many endlessly entertaining films that I’ve seen over the past year.

Molly’s game is about a woman named Molly who…actually, forget it. I won’t tell you the plot because the plot is based on such a wild real-life story that made me enjoy the film more, because I was completely unaware going into it. I definitely had that feeling multiple times throughout 2017, as there were a lot more movies based on real-life events for some reason. If you must know, it’s about a woman who used to be an Olympic skier, but then becomes much more once she becomes involved in the gambling world. I’d definitely suggest not knowing much and going into this movie with no expectations, because it was definitely more enjoyable for me that way.

In terms of the performances, it’s mostly Jessica Chastain for the entire 2 and a half hours. She puts up a great performance, and doesn’t let up despite the fact that she’s really on camera for a long amount of time. Her character goes through a lot of different phases, and Chastain does a great job of adapting through all the stages of Molly’s life. Idris Elba takes up a decent amount of screen time, and he’s great as well. He has one particularly fantastic scene near the end that really let him show off his acting chops.

The best part about the movie is the writing. Aaron Sorkin is known by many to be one of Hollywood’s best screenwriters currently in the business, and this movie was his directorial debut as well. The writing is sharp and biting, which is just classic Sorkin. At times, it was a bit difficult to follow though, because there were some poker terms that kinda just flew by you without too much explanation. For the most part though, it does a great job of keeping you engaged. I wouldn’t say the writing was as good as his incredibly dialogue-heavy Steve Jobs, but it was definitely a higher caliber of writing than most movies.

My biggest complaint would probably be about some of the narrative decisions. It shifts between a lot of different aspects of Molly’s life, which can definitely disrupt some of the natural flow to the movie. There’s also a feeling of buildup throughout the movie, but there never really is a climax to tie everything together. There’s one story element in particular that seemed a bit too cliche and perfect, but I’m not entirely sure if it happened in real life or not. In that sense, I felt like the movie fell a bit flat. However, the writing and Chastain’s performance make it very entertaining throughout, which makes up for some of the cliche narrative decisions that they made.

Jessica Chastain has surprisingly been snubbed from a lot of the award season love, but she definitely deserves some recognition. She did a fantastic job playing her part and Sorkin also shows that he can be as capable of a director as he is a writer. There were many solid directorial debuts this year, and Sorkin is one of those people that I’ll be watching closely in the years to come.

Grade: B/80

 

“All the Money in the World” Review

Almost done with 2017 movies!

All the Money in the World is Ridley Scott’s latest film that depicts the real life events of the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, which was apparently a huge story back in the 70s. I’ve never heard of the story, so I felt that going into it completely unaware of what would happen would make for a pretty thrilling experience. Two things happened after finishing this movie—one, I found that the real life story to be very thrilling and intense; two, I ended up being more interested in the real life story than the actual movie itself.

I wouldn’t say this is a bad movie. However, it isn’t great. It’s a decent thriller movie, and with a story as crazy as this real-life kidnapping, it doesn’t need much more to make it more engrossing than it needs to be. However, I had issues with the pacing and the way that the narrative shifted between the kidnappers and the mother of the kidnapped son. There were a lot of moving parts in this movie, and I felt like it wasn’t balanced out well. However, the story is still undeniably gripping and I was definitely intrigued to see how it played out. Based on what I read, I think the film is mostly accurate so it definitely adds to the drama throughout the film.

I wasn’t particularly into any of the performances. Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, and Christopher Plummer were all kind of a let down. There was a lot of buzz about Plummer replacing Kevin Spacey due to all the scandals, and I think that there was an overabundance of praise heaped upon Plummer’s performance just to kind of spite Spacey. While I do think that it’s absolutely incredible that they were able to completely remove him from the movie, Plummer’s performance wasn’t that impressive in my eyes. In fact, I think the best performance in the movie easily goes to one of the kidnappers, played by Romain Duris. I think he exhibited a wide range of emotions and really got to show off his acting chops based on the screen time given to him.

I was also oddly put off by the aesthetic of the movie. All of the colors in the film felt muted, and at times I wasn’t sure if I was watching a black and white film or not. There was a weird colorization to the movie that had me distracted at times, which is a first for me. Perhaps it was intentional to fit the mood of the film, but it actually seemed more distracting to me than atmospheric.

Overall, this movie has a great premise to work with. The story of the kidnapping is intense and unbelievable at times, but the pacing and the performances weighed it down a bit. I still found it to be enjoyable, but I felt like it definitely could have been much more. I’ve always found my enjoyment in Ridley Scott’s movies to vary quite a bit, and I would say this was one of this lesser movies compared to some other things he’s done in the past.

Grade: B-/72