Future shock: unearthing the

most cutting-edge sci-fi movies

of 2018
With films from Steven Spielberg, Duncan Jones
and Alex Garland in the pipeline, there’s plenty to
get excited about beyond the superhero franchises
Ben Child Last modified on Wed 3 Jan ‘18 12.16 GMT

Unearthly horrors ... Natalie Portman in Alex Garlandʼs Annihilation. Photograph: Peter Mountain

If the 2017 box office was typified by any one movie, it was surely Rian
Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a smart, intelligently curated yet ever
so slightly soulless example of machine-honed franchise film-making. It
ticked every box for fans of the venerable space saga, without ever really
pushing the envelope; a movie that eventually made the Kessel Run, but 40
years or so after Han Solo and Chewie had already achieved that legendary
feat.

The Last Jedi, like Spider-Man: Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy

Volume 2 and Wonder Woman before it in 2017, proved that Hollywood
probably has the tools and talent to keep churning out episodic blockbuster
fantasy until at least 2050. To complain at this state of affairs would be
churlish, especially when studios are delivering substandard and ill-
considered material such as Justice League. But it does feel as if the
Hollywood zeitgeist has crystallised in recent times, and we are in an era of
fabulously made yet increasingly homogenous Marvel and Star Wars flicks
that leave us only semi satisfied. Perhaps this is why the year’s greatest
celluloid treasure, Blade Runner 2049, failed to gain traction with modern
audiences who had perhaps never seen anything like it.

In that spirit, here’s a guide to upcoming films that might just move things
on this year. Sequels, remakes and mega-franchise fare are therefore
largely banned as we go looking for the films with the best chance of
leading us into a brave new world of sci-fi and fantasy in 2018.

Annihilation (2018) - O2cial Trailer - Paramount Pictures

First up is Alex Garland’s Annihilation, due out in February, which would

merit a place solely because the British film-maker’s last effort, Ex
Machina, was a singular example of a cerebral, gripping futuristic think
piece. Annihilation’s premise, on the face of it, is not all that exceptional,
with Garland adapting Jeff VanderMeer’s novel about a biologist (Natalie
Portman) who heads into an environmental disaster zone in search of
answers after her soldier husband (Oscar Isaac) returns alone injured and
close to death from a mission there. A quick dip into the book, however,
suggests a discombobulating trip into the heart of darkness, where
unknown, unearthly horrors lurk. Could Garland’s movie be the Alien on
Earth movie we were promised as far back as 1992, but have so far never
got to see?

Garland has perhaps taken the mantle of Duncan Jones as the coming man
of sci-fi. After the disaster that was Jones’ adaptation of World of Warcraft,
the Moon director is returning to more intimate territory with the
futuristic mystery thriller Mute. Described as a “spiritual successor” to
Moon, it is also said to be inspired by the original Blade Runner, which can
never be a bad thing and might sate the appetites of those of us longing for
yet more mesmeric visions of the android-strewn dystopian future. Word is
that Sam Rockwell will return as Moon’s Sam Bell (or perhaps one of his
clones) but the main storyline centres on a mute bartender with a violent
past (Alexander Skarsgård) searching for his lost lover in mid 21st-century
Berlin.

Next up is Captive State, in August, from Rise of the Planet of the Apes’
Rupert Wyatt, the British director’s first science fiction movie since leaving
the man-versus-simians saga. With a budget of just $25m, it will be
fascinating to see how Wyatt delivers a story set 10 years after an alien
invasion of Chicago. Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 was shot for $30m in
2009, while Gareth Edwards completed Monsters a year later for
$500,000, so it can be done.
 Ready Player One - O2cial Trailer - Warner Bros. UK

Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, due out in March, has the unenviable
task of trying to convince us to get excited all over again about virtual
reality worlds, the best part of two decades after The Matrix gave us the
definitive inner digital wonderland on the big screen. Based on Ernest
Cline’s hugely popular novel, early trailers suggest this means swapping
out Trinity, Morpheus et al for pop culture stalwarts such as Freddy
Krueger, Lord of the Rings orcs, The Iron Giant and Deadpool, which all
seems a little corporate. And yet if anyone is due a late-career renaissance
it is Spielberg. If he proves he can still cut it in this realm, others will surely
follow the three-time Oscar-winner back down the digital rabbit hole.
 Mortal Engines O2cial Teaser Trailer [HD]

On to another long-lost subgenre: steampunk. Not since Chris Weitz’s ill-

fated The Golden Compass a decade ago have we seen a memorable big
budget example of the mode in cinemas, unless one counts Martin
Scorsese’s splendid Hugo. Is it time for a renaissance? If so, Christian
Rivers’ Mortal Engines, about a world in which technology has regressed to
Victorian levels and wheel-mounted carnivorous cities chase each other
across the plains might be the answer. Based on an adaptation of Philip
Reeve’s post-apocalyptic novel by the Lord of the Rings team of Fran
Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, it stars Irish actor Robert
Sheehan alongside Rings alumnus Hugo Weaving. Avatar’s Stephen Lang
plays the film’s main baddie, a murderous cyborg known as Shrike, and
there are three more books in Reeve’s series if audiences get a taste for this
future-retro blend.
 The New Mutants | O2cial Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Finally,only only one superhero flick looks like it will break new ground:
20th Century Fox’s The New Mutants. With a fine cast including The
Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy and Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams, Josh
Boone’s comic book tale will dip its toe into the resurgent horror genre. It’s
set in a secret facility where several future X-Men types find themselves
imprisoned and in imminent danger, and is being talked up as the first in a
potential trilogy. With Deadpool and Logan emerged as two of the livelier
comic book entries of the past few years, it seems that Fox is finally carving
out a place for the X-Men at the more mature end of the superhero
spectrum. If we have any hope that 2018 will mark the beginning of a new
era in fantasy film-making, this could be a very welcome mutation indeed.

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