New-ish Releases: The Trip to Spain (2017); Annihilation (2018)

The Trip to Spain (2017)

Director: Michael Winterbottom

If you've seen the previous two "Trip" movies, starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, then you know exactly what to expect. And you won't be disappointed.

The third in this film series, The Trip to Spain is a loosely-scripted, semi-documentary style show that follows the two British comedians as they tour the locales and noted restaurants of Spain. During their long car rides and frequent meals together, the two constantly riff off of one another's observations and spontaneous celebrity impressions.

It seems like a formula which might get tired, and yet it hasn't. One part of this is that Coogan and Brydon, despite having rather different comedic styles and purvues, compliment and feed off of each other brilliantly. Though the series has never been completely ad-lib, the two have plenty of freedom to improvise, which keeps things quite fresh, even three films in. The other major strength is how each of the three movies has also had a distinct vision for these semi-fictionalized versions of Coogan and Brydon, and consequently their relationship to and dynamic with each other. In the first film, Brydon was the congenial, broad, "people's" funnyman, while Coogan was a self-obsessed, semi-depressive snob. In The Trip to Italy, the roles were slightly reversed, with Coogan being more balanced and at peace with himself and Brydon having doubts about his stable but somewhat tepid home life with this long-time wife and two children. In Spain, we get a slight shift back to Coogan playing the more dislikeable character, once more being rather high on his own success (he often cites his real-life accolades for his film Philomena) and an insufferable know-it-all. These changes between the films all manage to give each one a feel of its own, to great effect.

There isn't much more to be said in a review of this movie, as its major strengths come down to watching and listening to two expert comedians do their thing. The only oddity with this chapter in the series is that the end is a bit strange, even borderline surreal. But this is a pretty minor issue. The only other thing I would recommend is that, if you are considering watching this and have not seen the previous films, you should begin with The Trip. If you find it to your liking, watch the following two films. While you certainly could watch them in any order, seeing the two progress in their order of release does offer a little extra, overarching narrative cohesion.

Annihilation (2018) [Spoiler-free first section]

Director: Alex Garland

Trippy. Cerebral. Intermittently intense. This was another strong film by Alex Garland, though I didn't find it as good as his previous film.

Adapted from the novel of the same name, written by Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation follows Lena (Natalie Portman), a former army soldier and medic who is now a university professor of biology. Through a series of strange events, Lena is brought to the site of a strange anomoly being dubbed "The Shimmer" by thr group monitoring it. The Shimmer is a strange field of wavering lights that has surrounded a remote lighthouse on the coast. Any attempts to reconnoiter inside The Shimmer has produced nothing; in fact, nothing and noone who has ever entered the anomoly has yet returned, and The Shimmer is growing to encompass more and more of the surrounding area. Lena opts to join four other women - all either expert scientists, soldiers, or both - to enter The Shimmer and see if they can discover what the previous teams could not - just what the strange effect is and what its done to their search teams. Once the five women are inside, they begin to discover odd plant and animal life that seem to defy the known laws of biology and genetics. And as they begin to uncover clues about the fate of the previous scout team, some baffling and terrifying realizations begin to emerge.

As with most of Garland's other movies, Annihilation is more of a thinking person's sci-fi movie, which is what I enjoy most about it. From the outset, we are given a few mysteries to wrap our heads around, starting with Lena's initial quarantine and her first flashbacks to before she even knew about The Shimmer. The mystery only deepens as the film progresses, with answers being parsed out at just the right pace to satisfy, while raising larger, more frightening questions. I will admit that, while I'm no expert in physics or biology, the basic premise (which I won't spoil) only seems to stand up to so much close scrutiny. Still, it is a rather fascinating idea, and it leads to one of the movie's other great strengths - the visuals.

As the quintet of explorers go deeper into the shimmer, there are more than few visual images that are stunning in their creativity and vibrance. Others are horrifying and equally impressive. Although the movie never felt slow to me, the measured pacing allows us viewers to drink in the images and disturbing ideas which they imply. People who expect or hope for frequent, dynamic action in their films will probably grow frustrated with Annihilation, but for my part, I found the balance just right. There are several short and effective action sequences, along with a handful of suspensefuul moments, but these are hardly the movie's greatest strength. Rather, there is a strong balance of stunningly colorful scenes, along with a few eerily quiet, expansive shots that are a bit reminiscent of subdued sci-fi classic Stalker by Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky.

At this point, only a couple of days after my viewing of this movie, I'm not completely sure of whether I'll feel the need to watch it again. This is somewhat telling, as I usually feel the need to watch my favorite sci-fi movies multiple times, as the best ones are always rich enough in ideas and/or sophisticated enough in structure to warrant multiple viewings. I suspect that I will see it again at some point, but I currently feel as if there wasn't much that I missed on this initial viewing. In terms of Garland's other films, this one has less in common with the masterpiece Ex Machina than with his slightly uneven though worthwhile Sunshine.

Comments with Spoilers

Just a few thought and feelings about specific details in the movie.

The visual of the soldier who has basically "exploded" into some bizarre plantlife in the swimming pool is amazing. It's perhaps the most striking of several indelible images in the movie.

The sequence towards the end with Lena facing down the source of The Shimmer was completely entrancing. The visuals and the music score had me enrapt the way that you hope a movie can do, even if for only a minute or so.

I had a bit of an issue with the way one scene was written and the way one character was performed. The minor one is how Gina Rodriguez's character, the brawny soldier Thorensen, melts down into tears at one point. This may have been a reflection of her gradually-warping mental state, but it smakced a bit of gender stereotyping to have a woman - even a hard-bitten soldier - start crying when things get tough. I had to wonder whether Garland would have written this scene the same way if it had been a male soldier in that position.

Leigh's turn as Dr. Ventress was the one aspect of the movie
which seemed out of place.

The greater frustration to me was the performance of Jennifer Jason Leigh as the psychologist and operation director Dr. Ventress. I usually find Leigh to be a great actress, but I found her portrayal of Ventress oddly out of tune with what her character was. For the entire movie, she has an oddly distracted air of near-apathy that seems completely unconnected to the urgency which she is supposed to be feeling. I understand that her nerves are worn thin from seeing multiple groups go into The Shimmer and disappear, but it seems as if this should manifest itself more as a desperate drive to get to the bottom of it all, rather than the fatalistic, apathetic attitude that she wears on her sleeve for every second of her screen time. I can't be sure if this performance choice was Leigh's or director Garland's, but it resulted in a portrayal where the facts about and even dialogue coming from the character were horribly out of sync with her demeanor.

I don't know that the movie had to "tag" the final mystery by showing the rainbow Shimmer in Lena's eyes. I thought that just showing her embracing "Kane" was suggestive enough, while leaving a little bit of room for doubt for us viewers.