Annihilation

No. Kubrick is on a different level in regards to film making.

 

Just finished watching it on Netflix. It was OK if you have Netflix, soundtrack was excellent I thought. Stuck around for the credits, Geoff Barrow. Will be checking out the soundtrack now

 

The soundtrack ended up in my top 20 songs of the year. On Spotify. Some of the tunes are brilliant

 

Probably my favorite film of the year. I love brainy sci-fi films with that culminates in some kind of transcended psychedelic moment in the vein of 2001 and Tarkovsky's Solaris, and this very much follows that tradition. Visually, this is unassuming in its grading and photography, but that only aids the realism IMO.

Despite sticking to scifi, I think Garland has proved himself to be pretty diverse in tone. 28 Days was realist Ex Machina was more in the style of a speculative Phillip K Dick story, and this feels more along the lines of Clarke's 2001 novel or even Childhood's End in the theme of aggressive annihilation / assimilation. And as stated above the soundtrack is amazing.

 

Well Garland wrote "28 Days" later but it was directed by Danny Boyle and reflects his style of film making.

 

Boyle is certainly an auteur with a strong voice. I was referring to the tone of the screenplay which I think Boyle directed pretty faithfully. Sure Boyle injects some extra realism via his direction but I think even on page, 28 Days is a much lighter touch of sci-fi than Annihilation and Ex Machina. My point was that he can write very diverse sci-fi stories, and I think between his two (three of you count ghost-directing Dredd) films he seems to be able to translate them to very distinct films as a director. I look forward to his next project.

 

I agree. He is tremendously talented as a director (although "Dredd" was the least like his other material). I also really like "Sunshine" (except for the last act which seemed like a desperate attempt to inject action into it). The tone shifts so quickly in that last act, it's just kind of odd. Still, I liked it. I agree all of his work his thought provoking (well maybe except "Dredd").

 

I really Sunshine too. I think he really mastered the third act twist with Annihilation, it feed more organic to the film than the ending of Sunshine. Dredd is an interesting film. Not really thought provoking, but as a straight action film it was surprisingly restrained and effective. I imagine he was doing more of a straightforward professional job getting that film done than anything.

 

I agree. I like Dredd quite a bit and feel that the character was also done justice with this film. I'd love to see Karl Urban return in a sequel.

 

In most movies of any genre the ending tends to be predictable and any-climatic - this ending was not.

The pacing was slow and studied and the flashbacks assembled some of the pieces.

About half-way through, the story picked-up speed but this is no action movie - more thought-provoking and unpredictable.

The ending was perfect for the story and I interpreted at least two likely meanings to the ending.

I found it interesting, held-my-attention and like walking through a funhouse throughout.