Annihilation

Based on the Nebula Award-winning opening novel in Jeff VanderMeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy, Garland's follow-up to Ex Machina (Best Media 2015, LJ 1/16) is not quite up to his terrific debut but shows no evidence of a sophomore slump either. An all-female expedition, including biologist and team leader Lena (Natalie Portman), has been dispatched to quarantined "Area X," where the flora and fauna are being mysteriously transformed by unknown forces. Only Lena's husband (Oscar Isaac) has survived a previous expedition, and he is not himself. Freely adapted by Garland for the big screen with the novelist's blessing, Annihilation is sufficiently ambiguous to tantalize without being off-putting. The surprise box office hit A Quiet Place stresses horror over sf in this tale about blind aliens with acute hearing—and big, sharp teeth—but is by no means conventional. Emily Blunt and director Krasinski star as parents of young kids, with a baby on the way, trying to survive an invasion by keeping quiet—very quiet. Occasional lapses in plausibility pop up but are mild by genre standards. This very suspenseful Place, at 90 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome.