Do you remember when Marvel vs. Capcom first came to arcades and the sheer unadulterated glee you felt at pairing up dream teams and the nerding out over the combo attacks?

At its best moments, ​Avengers: Infinity Wars taps into that pure joy.  It's like a crossover episode in the best ways, like when the ego of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) butts heads with Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), or when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) strikes up an unlikely friendship with Groot (Vin Diesel).  When you have a story like this that comes as a culmination of 20 movies and too many characters to keep track of, the story has to skate thin on character development and focus on the chemistry or tensions of the different mashups.

The latest Avengers movie comes with the highest stakes yet, finally featuring a formidable Thanos (Josh Brolin) whose presence has been steadily built up (mostly in the stingers) from previous Marvel movies.  He's on a mission to collect all of the Infinity Stones in order to accrue the power to destroy half the universe.  Half the universe is neither a generalization or an exaggeration.  Thanos believes that the universe has a finite amount of resources and they are too scarce to go around.  His solution is an indiscriminate genocide of a random half of the universe to make sure that everyone can live with full bellies.

The Marvel universe has had its fair share of forgettable villains -- you'd be commended for even remembering half of them -- and Thanos is a funny one.  He's allowed more development because arguably the film centers around him - his journey to collect the stones, his arc and his tribulations.  However, he's so matter-of-fact, he's not that interesting.  He's so single-minded it's admirable but it doesn't make for compelling storytelling.  It doesn't help that his emotion depends largely on the effectiveness of his purple CG face, although there could be no better man to try than Brolin.

The usual complaints of the Avengers mashups remain, in that characters get lost in the mix.  Some exceptions include Thor, coming off of Ragnarok with aplomb and both Spiderman (Tom Holland) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) provide a needed emotional core.  With so many characters and the resulting minimized screen time, it quickly becomes clear who has acting chops and doesn't.  Cumberbatch is convincing with every word, whereas you can't help but wonder if they had to pipe eyedrops into Chris Pratt's eyes to conjure his emotion.  However, story-wise, Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) is essentially only there to provide soldiers for a slaughter and we get no chance at all to absorb the impact Captain America: Civil War has had on a much-hardened Steve Rogers (Chris Evans).

As a two-parter, Infinity Wars has the inevitable misfortune as a set-up movie for the finale.  We can't expect a resolution, nor can we really expect a full character arc for anyone involved.  The way the story is set up however, the biggest fault is the lack of stakes.  Although Infinity Wars starts off with a bang, by the end we're no longer feeling the effect of the losses and we lose the emotional impact of the destruction.  Furthermore, at this point in the ​Avengers queue, it's hard to keep feeling frustrated at how ineffectual some of the team members are at working together and it's tiring how often they're the source of their own failure.  How big does an ego have to be to supersede the fate of the universe?

Infinity Wars also suffers from a muddled theme.  As said before, Thanos has a focused intent and is all too ready to sacrifice in order to achieve it.  This is juxtaposed against the different members of the Avengers who are constantly given choices throughout the movie to sacrifice something for the greater good.  It's very clear that a theme was meant to be established there, but not entirely sure what it's meant to say because there is no consistency in what they say, do, or what results.  Perhaps we'll get a clearer answer in the sequel and the conclusion to this arc of the Marvel universe.

However, these are minor quips in the scope of what the film needs to accomplish.  Avengers has always been about the threat of a villain too large to defeat alone and the fun of seeing everyone come together.  The Marvel universe has always been good at balancing humor with drama, and that's what makes this an enjoyable romp albeit not one meant for constant rewatches.  Some of the more weakly written characters get lost, but there's undeniable entertainment in getting to see your other favorites again.  The most you can ask is for a rollicking good time and a true sense of the danger the heroes need to save us from.  It's a movie to laugh to, gasp at, and cheer for.  Grab a large bag of popcorn and enjoy the ride.

On a final note, the Avengers movies have come out every three years, and they've each marked a sort of different stage of my review writing for films.  Here are the previous ones, just for fun:

Avengers

Avengers: Age of Ultron

In You Were Never Really Here, Lynn Ramsay's latest anti-hero Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a war veteran whose job is tracking down missing girls even as he runs from his own internal demons.  Unsparing in brutality, Joe has to examine his own motivations when a job goes down a rabbit hole of betrayal and conspiracy.

When told that Joe's weapon of choice is a ball-peen hammer, you expect to sit through a movie with graphic and uncomfortable intensity.  Surprisingly though, Ramsay's scenes of physical violence are economical.  However, the intensity comes in Phoenix's mental violence and character struggles.  In an opening scene, you see his head wrapped in plastic bag as he self-asphyxiates and you're not sure whether he is contemplating suicide or pursuing the space as some sort of solace.  Ramsay is as unsparing here as anywhere else -- for a few moments, you feel as if you're suffocating with Joe in that closet, and you feel the same panicky lack of air he would.

You Were Never Really Here is based on a novella by Jonathan Ames of the same name, but it views more like a graphic novel come to life.  There are the same murky, vigilantic tones, and the same vibrant and stylistic slashes of color.  Ramsay's take is short on story, and there's nothing in there that is new.  Joe is another vigilante with nebulous intentions, perhaps seeking redemption in his quests to save wayward girls.  In the beginning, there's a fuzzy line between him and the men he takes down.  We first see visual trophies like a trinket or a girl snapshot, as if he himself were a predator, before he burns them.  Joe is a dangerous character, assured while on the job but completely unpredictable out of it.

What makes this film different from something akin to The Punisher, is Ramsay's unmistakable style.  She is able to convey the palpitations and overwhelming abrasiveness inside Joe's skin.  There's a too loud pumping soundtrack going on when Joe isn't pummeled by the screeching noises of every day life.  And the colors are so vibrant and emotive -- there's the grit of an at first unidentifiable foot scraping in the yellow sand, the blue bathhouse that steams Joe's soul, and the tones of the rain.  Ramsay has always been able to convey discomfort through color (who could forget the red curtain scene from We Need to Talk About Kevin where Tilda Swinton was swathed in a hot, red-lidded haze?).

The film is elevated by Ramsay's second collaboration with composer Jonny Greenwood.  Greenwood has always been able to depict an assault of senses via percussive strings, but there are scenes here that are undeniably made better because of his musicality.  A particularly visually stunning underwater scene is made heartbreaking thanks to Greenwood's score.  This soundtrack seems far worthier of an Oscar nom, given Greenwood's range from lyrical to Penderecki-like, able to encompass both the beauty and the overwhelming tumult of Joe's mind.

Other than a few scenes, it's hard to get much out of Joe despite Phoenix's as always incredible acting.  You want more of a connection between him and the girl he's rescuing for most of the movie.  But she's so understandably remote, you're neither sure of his motivation or their relationship.  And despite all that happens in the movie, this chapter seems very much like a small blip in the ongoing noise of Joe's soul.

You Were Never Really Here ultimately has less to say than something like Scorsese's thematically similar Taxi Driver, but is worth it because of the energy of Ramsay and Phoenix's first-time collaboration, bottling something both visually and cinematically firework-like.

When you're told that you're going to experience a "horse and boy" story, a basic structure comes to mind a la Black Stallion or Secretariat or maybe National Velvet.  Lean on Pete is none of those - lacking in sentimentality, although full in devastating beauty - it's less a story about a racehorse with a final chance on glory and more on life's transience for its "boy" Charley Thompson (Charlie Plummer).

Charley Thompson is a waifish highschooler who looks pretty enough to be Elle Fanning's brother, and although his father (Travis Fimmel) is kind, he isn't exactly a model paternal figure.  Cue the entrance of a crotchety old horse trainer (Steve Buscemi), a motherly weathered horse jockey (Chloe Sevigny), and a fading racehorse called "Lean on Pete" or just Pete for short.  If this sounds like the makings of a coming of age equine story, you'd be right, but Lean on Pete takes a completely different track in its narrative about a boy that's trying to find some permanence in his increasingly unstable life.

Director Andrew Haigh's previous feature 45 Years was another brutally passive and artistically lovely film that deftly handled its characters.  As his first American film, it was difficult to see how this English director would accurately portray the Pacific Northwest with accuracy and sensitivity.  For four months before the start of filming, Haigh spent time with the book's author Willy Vlautin getting acquainted with the local racetracks and the landscape of Oregon's people, motels, and diners.  However, it's not just the time that Haigh spent here that gives authenticity to his work, but his directing style that is able to observe without glamour.  These aren't the racetracks we're used to seeing on film, nor the gruff exteriors hiding mallowy hearts of gold.  Several times we can't help but expect a sort of Disney turnaround with the fortunes of Charley and his horse, but we rarely see that happen.

Like the horse he befriends, Charley is a runner, and there is a theme of constant change and movement throughout the movie.  It's not a long stretch to imagine that Charley wants to provide for Pete what he has been lacking in his own life while at the same time needing the horse to fill that same vacancy.  Whether through circumstances or through his choice, Charley is always on the run, and yet constantly searching for a place and for people to stay.  Pete and Charley are both passive ciphers, as Charley is able to tell his fears and his hopes to Pete.  Rarely elsewhere do we see Charley lay his thoughts to words, even when he is probed about his mother or his past.  And although there are several searching glances Charley gives himself in the mirror throughout the movie, he is often someone who is merely reacting to the events around him.  However, despite being a life full of hard knocks, the film manages to be hopeful in the light of its realization that life is not all that you want it to be.

Part of this is achieved through the cinematography of Magnus Nordenhoff Jonck, which is able to capture both the natural beauty of Oregon's wilderness while emphasizing the vastness of it.  Unlike a western where the breadth of the frame makes the world feel bold and like an adventure to conquer, Charley looks dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the space around him.  Plummer handles the role with subtlety, which is why the film is as strong as it is in its silences.  Lean on Pete needs that strong anchor to hold the story, which takes a dramatic shift in what could be termed separate acts even while its character merely drifts.

It's vital to have "outsiders" take a look at other cultures and give their viewpoint.  Their outlook may be flawed, or it may serve to give new eyes to a situation we have become jaded to.  Whatever the case, directors like Haigh are to be valued because above all they try to serve the truth with their work.  There's no lack of love in the people that inhabit Lean on Pete, but the tragedy of their lack of action for each other can probably best be summed up by Charley's father's words: "Sorry I can't give you more".

Somewhere along the line, the horror genre became a litmus test for judging directors.  For decades, it's been a good gauge for how well novice filmmakers can do with a limited budget and resources.  However, rather than resorting to cheap thrills like a brain devoid slasher flick or torture porn, in the past few years we've seen a variety of what the horror genre can do, and it has been more effective when the horror is secondary to the story.  It Follows is an allegory on coming of age, Babadook is an exploration on how grief can torment a family, and last year's Get Out was much much more than it first appeared.  Similarly, John Krasinski's A Quiet Place (which he wrote, directed, and co-starred in) succeeds because it is so much more than a movie with horror trappings.

A Quiet Place focuses on a rural family in the aftermath of some apocalyptic event.  We open with what has now become familiar visual fare of a deserted store and within a few moments, Krasinski establishes the roles of all of the family members: the father (Krasinski), the mother (the real-life wife of Krasinski, Emily Blunt), and the three children of various ages, played by Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cade Woodward.  They skitter around the store as if they're specters themselves, all barefoot, and signing to each other while making no noise.  All around the store, we see that although several items have been long pillaged, there's a story in what has been left untouched, such as a stack of crunchy Doritos bags.

And this is because the family, and at least the surrounding area, are plagued by unknown monsters who are attracted to noise.  Little is said about how they arrived or what impact they've had worldwide, but it's not needed for several reasons.  Krasinski is wise to keep the story tight to the family, because there are several potential holes that could puncture the framework of this idea.  But this story is chiefly about the family and their dynamic.  The camera is tight on them, often in close-ups, not only because this amps up the tension, but because it is intimate to their narrative.  Furthermore, in a world where silence reigns, there is far more significance in a glance, in a furrowed brow, or a motion.  Blunt conveys her love for her family and her husband so simply and elegantly.  Although the parents both have a role in keeping their family together, it is arguably Blunt who holds that emotional cord within the span of a few gestures.

This is why A Quiet Place succeeds: it is ultimately an empowering tale about a family's love for each other.  Although yes, the creature design on the monsters is wonderful, and Krasinski shows a good deal of restraint in how much he chooses to show of it through out the movie.  However, that, along with some of the cheaper jump scares, are things that will wear thin with rewatches (and perhaps even as the movie goes on).  What remains, and what makes it truly frightening, is that you come to care for all of the characters.  There is a masterful sense of timing with some of the plot props -- Krasinski knows just how much time and reveal should be given to any given set pieces (it's Chekovian as much as it is Marx Brothers) -- but at the same time, he's able to give us a theme without making it saccharine or trite, wandering into heavy-handed M. Night Shyamalan territory.  Krasinski doesn't use cheap effects like a shaky camera to make the audience feel anything -- he does it all by giving us a clear view of the people and the film.

Charlotte Bruus Christensen is the cinematographer here, known for her work in such movies as The Hunt, which focuses on bringing another kind of tension to the screen.  Christensen and Krasinski are both inexperienced in creating horror movies, but looked at movies such as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood as well as Hitchcock as those are movies that are good with handling silences, but also are demonstrative of their setting.  They are also, not by coincidence, stories that make use of a wide screen while creating intimacy.  Similarly, A Quiet Place makes use of the natural background, without artificiality and it's also this closeness to nature that can be unnerving to audience members, like the profound impact of darkness in The VVitch was.  Remarkably, A Quiet Place, is able to draw you into its world while making you acutely aware of yourself.  Never will you go into another movie so aware of the noise you're making or of who is slurping a soda behind you.  I nearly karate chopped an individual sitting in front of me who had an excruciatingly bright cell phone screen lit up as he Snapchatted someone.

What a joy to see Krasinski and Blunt work together.  It requires a sort of trust between people when using non-verbal cues so heavily as in the story, and also between the storyteller and the audience.  It's a tight narrative that has shaved off all the gristle while remaining rich in potent, empowering themes.

Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is an ode to nostalgia, riddled with both overt and subtle references to 80s video games, movies, music, and overall pop culture.  A film adaptation seemed both imperative and impossible to accomplish.  Steven Spielberg, that titan who was the influence for so much of Cline’s love, appeared the perfect choice to helm the project.  No matter the result, we as an audience have expected a sort of reliability throughout Spielberg’s prolific and impressive career.  The question of course is, did he deliver?

The answer, as usual, depends heavily on what criteria you’re basing it on.  Ready Player One is the same basic story – The year is 2045 and people are immersed in a virtual reality universe called the OASIS.  James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the creator of OASIS has passed away and left his inheritance in an easter egg hidden in the VR world, which can be found only through a series of three quests.  A lifelong fan and player Watts (Tye Sheridan) stumbles upon the first clue to the quest and finds himself in a race for his life and for humanity to unlock the keys to the worldwide scavenger hunt.

Ready Player One is a romp back into Spielberg’s sweet spot of an adventure story.  Riddled with cameos and pop references that completely litter the screen, there are battles and arenas that beg for a slow-motion replay just to catch all of them.  Spielberg does so well with the kids vs the world story (like E.T. of course), and Ready Player One suffers a bit as that because it fails to juggle its adult themes as well as it does the former.  We never get a good sense of the danger, the sinister corporate grasp, or the true need for an escape from dystopian future.  Every step is a little too easy.  The opening which shows towering monoliths of the future’s evolution of trailer parks is a balance of humor and a reality that borders closely on what could be that the rest of the film never quite achieves again.

Although the basic scavenger hunt remains the same with most of the same characters, the story’s intent and most of its main plot points differ.  The quests are different, and although filming pragmatism probably forced Spielberg’s hand, it is still a disappointment to see how the overall hunt has completely changed.  Furthermore, the answers to the riddles aren’t dependent on the hours of knowledge-building or skill-building that Wade and his fellow nerds have accrued for this quest.  Because we also don’t get as much time or character-building with any of the players, we come to care for them less than we should.

Strangely, Spielberg’s movie moments in Ready Player One teeter a little too saccharine here, so much so that some scenes feel forced and unbelievable.  This is not to undermine the cast, all of which are likable and winning in their roles.  It's something to be said for both technology and the actors' abilities that their personalities are able to come through even when they're being represented by their CG avatars.

Is it a good standalone movie?  It is worth seeing, for certain.  Spielberg plots an adventure story so well and his pacing is tight and unmatched.  And for a movie that could be overwhelmed by the hundreds of small characters (everything from Hello Kitty to Freddy Krueger), he does a good job of focusing the action on the screen.  It’s definitely a movie that is worth seeing on the biggest screen possible and there’s a sense of love that sheds gimmick.  And above all else, it’s fun.  The middle quest, in particular, is a highlight that really emphasizes a combination of nostalgia and glee.

And nostalgic glee is the takeaway factor here.  At the end of the day, the question is whether Spielberg has made a good adventure movie and not necessarily a good 80s tribute film.  When a film like this can accomplish what it does without seeming like a greatest hits album, it’s accomplished its goal as a good story.  Whether that story is the same as its source material is another question, but could also be besides the point.

The best innovators in film are able to use their budget limitations to their advantage, allowing practical parameters to facilitate their creativity.  Take for example the effect of the camera skating over the ground in Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, which has now become synonymous with the film, and was actually just a result of Raimi and fellow crew member running around with the camera held low.  Duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who work together to be directors, writers, cinematographers, and actors for their films may lack the same visual panache of Shane Carruth (another low-budget wearer of many hats), but they have a keen sense for storytelling and also of what elements would cheapen their film.

The Endless opens on two brothers that are stuck in a rut.  Ten years ago, they escaped from a UFO death cult, and this event has succeeded to both impede and define their existence to this day.  After receiving a mysterious videotape from a member of the cult who claims they've achieved "ascension", younger brother Aaron (Moorehead) implores his brother Justin (Benson) to return for a short trip in order to achieve some sort of emotional closure.  Justin reluctantly agrees, and they drive back to a very present commune that welcomes them with forgiving and strangely unchanged arms.  As their stay extends, strange events and characters emerge, altering the brothers' relationship with what they believed of the cult.

It's difficult to talk about the overall plot of The Endless while conveying exactly how this movie feels and how it diverts expectations.  Whatever you might go into the film thinking after hearing the descriptor "UFO Death Cult" is inevitably going to be very different than how both the film opens, and how it continues.  The Endless is able to get successively creepier and knottily compelling as the film goes on.  By the end, it offers a fascinating idea that is able to somehow overcome any of the plotholes that inevitably pop up.  It goes down a rabbithole (or several wormholes) of ideas, and it's there in that sort of incredibly unique storytelling where it feels most like Shane Carruth who has created the incomparable stories in Primer and Upstream Color with limited budget.

Writer Benson understands (as we see with the opening quote), how the unknown and the unseen are far better for our fears and imaginations than anything that special effects of any budget can create.  The Endless thrives with what is unseen, not because the creators feared the money it would require, but because we're far more unsettled by it (consider, for example, how much better Signs is before that last act).  What visual effects they do employ are effective, and always work as an imperative to the story rather than a cheap thrill.

Film viewers who caught Benson-Moore's debut Resolution will see some familiar faces, and ​The Endless develops that previous world more fully, although both films stand alone well.  It's more of a revisit for the directing duo because they were still so caught with the possibility and meaning of the first.  Benson is certainly innovative in his writing, one example being in that he asked Moorehead for a list of his random skills and was able to weave a believable thread to cohere them -- this is apparently the story behind the pivotal use of a knot in the story.  There's an unsteadiness in various aspects of the art, including the camera holding and the often flickering lights that create a vignetting, that add to our encroaching fears in the story.  For a story that deals with eternal life, we get frequent, jarring cuts that create the effect of losses of our own time or as if the viewer is experiencing memory loss or gaps of time that are eaten away.

Despite the bizarre, Benson also handles the cyclical nature of normal life well and what it can take to break out of an endlessly repetitive life or whether either choice can be a kind of death.  Although he writes in the brothers' dynamics and his intent is to make it a focal point, the character development there is weaker than it should be.  There was more camaraderie in the brief glimpse of a relationship we see with the cabin characters from Resolution than for the two brothers.  Whether this is due to the lack of acting experience or the lines is difficult to say.  It's also hard to judge how old the brothers are supposed to be in their initial time at the cult, because they use the same actors for all of the scenes that are supposed to take part in the past.  Therefore, some of the plot or the visual oddities lose their impact, such as when the two brothers come back to the camp and remark on everyone's still youthful appearance.

However, for whatever obvious flaws that are bound to crop up, the ingenuity of the storytelling vastly makes up for it.  Benson's Lovecraftian tale set amongst a character-driven story of two brothers who are trying to break free of their past in different ways serves a completely original and refreshingly preoccupying film.  It's the kind of art that makes one want to see everything in the dual director's ouevre and look forward to what's to come from the pair in the future without reservation.

The Endless starts playing at SIFF Cinema Uptown on April 27.

When you think of documentaries about Japanese cuisine, the first to come to mind is Jiro Dreams of Sushi, with its hypnotic Philip Glass music accompanying a montage of elegant sushi placed just so in front of the camera as you see the piece of art naturally settle with the weight of gravity and rice.  When Ramen Heads attempts a similar scene where they show the different steps to assembling a ramen bowl, it's a messy affair.  Every scene slops onto the counter as ingredients are delivered to the bowl and even though drips are wiped up between shots, they're quickly replaced by other drops.

This is kind of the aesthetic to Koki Shigeno's documentary about Osamu Tomita, considered by many to be the best ramen maker in Japan and nabbing the best ramen of the year four times from Japan's most prestigious ramen guidebook.  The fact that Japan has such a guidebook is indicative of the nation's obsession with the food.  Tomita talks about how easy it is to have an expensive dish be delicious, but his outlook is to provide tasty quality in an $8 meal.

Shigeno's film is earnest, but unpolished, like its sometimes synthesized strings music that reels behind a dramatic narrative that teeters between serious and comical.  It is, however, better suited to the food it portrays.  Ramen Heads generally follows Tomita, although at one point it does take us on a foray of the best ramen restaurants in the area, like a scene from Tampopo where they pinpoint the chefs who do certain elements of the ramen the best.

Tomita's tsukumen (dripping) ramen itself is a lugubrious concoction that looks closer to curry than broth.  He's the one that has to man the cauldron with its specific alchemy of broth mixtures and the shop doesn't open if he's unable to be there.  There's little reason for him to be absent though -- even on his days off, he visits a couple ramen shops a day (including a favorite that he asks the docucrew not to name since it's his favorite), and when he eats out with his family, they go out to another ramen shop, much to the narrator's disbelief.  At the restaurant, Tomita chastises his son for making a mess at the table, but we find that it has less to do with dirtying his shirt, but more to the fact that the reason for the mess is that he is not slurping his noodles in the correct fashion.

There's certainly a discipline and strictness to how Tomita lives his life and rules his kitchen.  And yet, there is a familiarity here between him and the customers.  When it comes to ramen, he is right there at the counter serving his work to customers, whereas in most European high cuisine kitchens, there is a divide between the kitchen and the front of house.  It allows Tomita (and other ramen makers) to see reactions firsthand, but it also means that they control how people are served or talked to by his workers.

The documentary is bare bones and most of its shots aren't beautiful, by any means.  It also includes a weirdly animated sidebar on the history of ramen.  However, it is a fun look at the different types of ramen and the various heavy hitters of Tokyo ramen in a succinct documentary of one hour and 32 minutes.

Olivia Cooke's character, Amanda, can't feel anything.  Lily (Anna Taylor-Joy) is a polished, narcissistic fast-learner.  Apart, they might not be model teenagers, but when they come together, they encourage each other down a no-holds-barred path.

And thus we come into the well-groomed Connecticut neighborhood of Thoroughbreds, Cory Finley's film debut.  Finley comes from the stage, and it shows.  Not only because of his on-the-nose, tart dialogue, but because of his visuals.  Usually when playwrights first take the camera helm (like Malcolm McDonagh), we get a feeling of constriction and a sense that this would be better as a one-room play.  Finley, on the other hand, literally directs us to every detail he wants us to see.  When Amanda first walks into Lily's stepdad Mark's study, we see a framed picture of him in full kendo regalia in all seriousness and know that Finley wants us to realize:  Ah...this guy is a douche.

It's these details that make Thoroughbreds so visually appealing, like the opening of Hitchcock's Vertigo where we see all the details without having to hear the exposition.  When Finley zooms in on details, we see the perfectly manicured nails of Lily marred by the hints of a hangnail, and later the chewed down ones of Anton Yelchin's low level drug dealer.  It's a controlled environment.  Cinematographer Lyle Vincent (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) amplifies the effect by following characters with a Steadicam, making the glide precise even as it meanders a maze of the girls' twisted intents.

There's a similar exactness to the sound design, which is excellent from the first draw of the car up to the front steps, to the ticking of the clock, and when Lily taps her pen repeatedly on the table.  Every use of sound, or the minimal soundtrack that is akin to Taiko drumming, amps up the tension.  And sometimes it's the lack of sound that does it, as in a particularly fraught sequence where you're just waiting for the silence to break.

Taylor-Joy and Cooke are pitch-perfect for their respective roles, each delivering chilling character reveals, albeit in different ways.  Cooke's deadpan delivery could have been assisted better with some more skillful editing, but rarely does she need it as a prop.  And Taylor-Joy gives nuance to every shadow at every chapter's closure in the story, making you genuinely wonder how it will all turn out.

Lily is a girl that refuses to suffer consequences:  her maid immediately picks up the trash she leaves behind, she blames an indiscretion at school on extenuating circumstances, and she offers up ideas for approval, not judgment.  What happens when she is mixed with a girl who puts forth independent ideas of morality and concurrently is incapable of giving judgment is the force behind Finley's feature.

Finley's feature emphasizes the thoroughbred metaphor a little too strongly at times, and should have a little more fun with itself.  I'm not entirely certain that the last scene is necessary either.  However, other than that, it's a solid debut from someone who is just as good as directing the camera as he is in parrying words.  His use of sound to tell a story is masterful.  Last but not least, this is Anton Yelchin's final film, and there's something more than a little gut-wrenching for both him and his character as he utters a desperate claim to wait until they can see where he'll be in "five to ten years" -- he'll be big, you'll see.  Although his turn in this film is brief, his talent is not.  If only his words were true.

Alex Garland's second movie, Annihilation, is a loose interpretation of Jeff VanderMeer's novel, where Lena (Natalie Portman) plays a biologist who joins a recon group that is tasked to figure out what is in the "Shimmer", a strange iridescent and slowly growing bubble that appeared after a meteorite crashed into a lighthouse.  The catch?  Everyone who has previously gone into the Shimmer failed to return, except for Lena's husband (Oscar Isaac), who too quickly goes into catatonic state, unable to give answers.

Those who know Garland's name might remember his tightly crafted Ex Machina which was a chamber piece that focused keenly on questions of A.I., what makes us human, and female objectification.  Annihilation is far more expansive in every way - a larger setpiece, a larger cast, and for better or worse, a broader thematic structure as well.

As Lena's group starts to encounter anomalies, the effects of being inside the Shimmer fragment their selves, interrupting the flow of reality in the movie.  Like its characters, Annihilation self-refracts, although it's a gentle mutation.  More than anything else, Annihilation feels like a fever dream and a sort of descent into madness.  At times, it can be seen as a metaphor for addiction or any of the other impulses that destroy humans.

Annihilation lacks the razor-sharp sense of purpose that Ex Machina had.  Garland's first movie was more self-contained.  However, that doesn't mean that Annihilation lacks purpose.  It touches on human impulses just as much as Machina, and how creation, survival, and growing or evolving as a being often requires that sort of destruction.  I doubt Garland wants to hint at a maxim or leave us with a thematic statement.  Like so many of his characters, his answers to these questions might be "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."  And still, he makes his self-destructive motif clear in every facet of the film, whether it's in the set or the characters or the biologic implications that are repeatedly alluded to.

Natalie Portman is the perfect actress for the role -- able to evince a character that is used to being in control of herself, whether it's her facade or her steely unblinking stare as she guns down a monster.  She's done this in Black Swan and even as Jackie Kennedy in last year's film.  And it's because of this, we see more easily what an erosion of that self is.  Similarly, we see how even physically, the posture of brash Anya (Gina Rodriguez) deteriorates, as she consistently seeks a seat more and more as the movie goes on.  We see that destruction in different ways, and especially in Tessa Thompson's laudable performance as one of the other team members.

Annihilation is the weakest when its framing structure comes into play -- an ongoing interview that is supposed to give structure to the film, but unfortunately comes off as mostly trite.  It also goes against the grain of the story, which is a slow dreamy exploration of madness.  Throughout the movie, you're often caught off-guard with how weird it is and yet how well it flows.  Garland has somehow allowed us to take a journey into the bizarre without being turned off.  And then an interview scene comes back in and disturbs us from that reverie.  It's as if someone had decided to regularly interrupt portions of Apocalypse Now with a banal interview.

Similarly, Annihilation's attempts to root the movie in reality make us beg more pertinently some plot points that don't make sense -- tactical errors that shouldn't be made by someone who served time in the army and failures of common sense.  However, if at all possible, Annihilation might be a movie that's better because it's vague -- there's little sense trying to make dream logic.  Unlike Cloverfield Paradox, which also came out this year, there's not a throwaway "this is another dimension so anything can happen", but it's more plausible that the characters here aren't able to understand fully what is happening because they're becoming more vague themselves.

Immense kudos to Garland for allowing himself to get truly strange.  There's beauty and cerebral wrestlings, but more than that, this is an illusive film that dares to ask more questions than it provides answers.