|
Jump to "Now Playing" Review for '28 Years Later: The Bone Temple' (Coming Soon!)  I didn't know this going in, and it may mean I haven't been paying enough attention to details, but trust me when I say that it's well worth noting that this ends on a cliffhanger. While the last two were left pretty open-ended, here it feels abundantly clear that the story is meant to continue, more like the end of a season of 'Walking Dead' than a matter of leaving it to one's imagination to fill in the blanks. I say all this because it was honestly jarring for me, the way this ended, but we'll get to that more later.
Here, we leap through time from the previous two films, which take place somewhere between 2002 and 2003, and fast-forward to 2030, where the Rage Virus has finally been wiped out of continental Europe (making the very end of '28 Weeks' pointless). However, the British Isles have been left quarantined, serving as ground zero for everything that went wrong, and the population has been left to fend for itself. This chapter centers on a family of three living in a community of survivors who have their ways, including tradition. One such tradition is shown by the father and son of this family, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Spike (Alfie Williams), in which Spike is brought to the mainland from their tidal island of Lindisfarne by way of a causeway to learn some scavenging and survival skills in this world of terror he'd have been born into. Meanwhile, Spike's Mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), stays home sick with a debilitating mental illness that they can't quite figure out with no medical experts present, but they cope however they can. During their time away from home, several things of note occur, like Spike getting his first kill and his first experience with an "Alpha," which is pretty much what it sounds like. While hiding out, Spike notices a fire in the distance, and eventually, the pair makes it back home. Spike brings the fire up to their family friend, Sam (Christopher Fulford), a fellow survivor who helps Jamie and Spike take care of Isla. In turn, Sam tells him about Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), an apparent "madman" whom their community fears. All Spike hears in this conversation is "Doctor," and he hopes that he can take what he's learned in such a short time to guide his mother to this doctor for some help. Much of the way the film unfolds returns to its original format, focusing more dramatically on the people involved. I have to say, everyone is excellent in their roles here and gives it their all, but Alfie Williams impressively knocks it out of the park, and I sense that he's probably gonna be a kid who goes places. Even standing next to Ralph Fiennes, this kid did a great job. The film does a great job of once again bringing us a new set of survivors and a new set of circumstances, focused on a family much like in '28 Weeks,' but set many years after the initial outbreak, and we see a lot of adaptation at work here. It further impresses by showing us pure isolation, even on a large landmass. It's eerie to think that during this, the rest of the world has returned to normal (more or less) while those who have been stranded on the British Isles have adapted a culture of zombie apocalypse survivors. For those questioning the somewhat famous clip of the very gaunt-looking zombie and whether or not it's meant to be what happened to Jim from '28 Days,' it is not him, and this is according to director Danny Boyle. Remember, this ends on a cliffhanger, though, and rumour has it that Jim may be coming back for the next movie, so that's exciting. But I'll say this about the film's cliffhanger ending - it comes out of nowhere. Pay attention to the film's opening scene to make any sense of it, and you may find yourself wondering what just happened in the movie. I hope there's a good enough reason planned for it to go so off the rails. 4/5
0 Comments
 It was a surprise, even to myself, that in my review for '28 Days Later' I confessed to it probably being the first zombie movie I saw in theatres, or maybe at all. I didn't carry through my enjoyment of the film, however, because for some reason, I didn't bother with '28 Weeks' here upon its release. However, when I finally saw it after a rewatch of the first film, it exceeded my expectations. I went in more or less blind, so I honestly expected it to pick up where the last one left off, with the same characters.
To my pleasant surprise, the film does not use the same characters as last time (those who survived, anyway), expands on what the first film sets up, brings in a whole different idea, entirely different environment, brand new characters, and executes it all very well with very little repeating material from '28 Days' (not to be confused with the Sandra Bullock movie). In other words, it's a sequel one can watch on their own without getting lost. There's enough of a descriptor at the beginning of the film anyway. Some time after the events of '28 Days,' the infected have begun to die off from starvation, NOT being meat-hungry proper zombies, but zombies in just about every other sense of the word. Soon, NATO forces arrive to take control, and Great Britain begins rebuilding what it can while keeping the infected out of its quarantined area on the Isle of Dogs. Here, brother and sister, Andy and Tammy (Mackintosh Muggleton and Imogen Poots, respectively), are taken in to meet with their father, Don (Robert Carlyle) and mother, Alice (Catherine McCormack), now presumed to be dead. Don, however, has a pretty awful secret he keeps to himself, and his guilt over it is what eventually reintroduces the rage virus into the deceptively safe scene. The central part of the story focuses on them and plays with the idea of an immune carrier; therefore, there are heavy reflections of 'The Last of Us,' but we must keep in mind that this movie came first, although I believe the concept predates it. Confusing, but I don't want to give too much away, as the twists and turns the film takes, even if they are a little predictable, were still very entertaining to me. It's a film that doesn't really hold back. In the meantime, however, there's the military presence, which plays a significant role here, keeping everyone protected. Overseen by Brigadier General Stone (Idris Elba), a whole lot of snipers on rooftops await any action, and it's surprisingly quiet and even kinda boring for a while, as the troops entertain themselves by watching what's going on with people through their scopes. The central focus on the military side is a soldier named Doyle (Jeremy Renner) and a medical officer named Scarlet (Rose Byrne), who play significant roles in protecting the aforementioned brother and sister later in the film. As mentioned earlier, and without giving too much away on just how it happens, the rage virus does manage to infiltrate this quarantine, and the film takes off from there as far as the action goes, keeping you on the edge of your seat. It could prove slow-moving for some up to that point. Still, I appreciate how they set up the quiet environment of the quarantined area, especially with the playful banter between the soldiers, which adds a comedic element to provide some entertainment until all hell breaks loose. If I'm going to give it any criticism, the first thing I'll address is the use of shaky-cam, which I understand is supposed to reflect the idea of "rage," but that doesn't mean I have to like it. However, I can cut it a little slack for its time. Otherwise, and this isn't a criticism so much as an observation, but the first film explored these ideas of humanity and rage, and they all blend into the film's climax. This one is more straightforward, as the standard zombie material we know and love today, again predating, but reflecting 'The Last of Us' in many ways. At the very least, it deserves some praise for tackling a different side of the zombie apocalypse. 4/5  Zombie movies have been a part of our culture for decades. They can be traced back as early as 1919 with the French film 'J'accuse,' in which the concept is presented more symbolically. However, most would attribute the zombies we know and love to 1932's 'White Zombie.' After that, if you look closely enough, you'll notice that they've just kept going since then, albeit largely underground, aside from basically anything George A. Romero made. I mean, if the title didn't have "... of the Dead," it didn't seem to count.
Here's where I'm gonna remind people that I was about as far away from being a horror fan as one could get back through my life in the '80s and '90s, so my biggest links to zombie horror at the time were things like Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video, and a loose familiarity with Romero's stuff without having seen any of it. Therefore, even to my disbelief, ' 28 Days Later' may very well have been the first zombie horror movie I saw. It's a peculiar thing to consider, but it's worth noting. It's no wonder I've always been drawn to the concept of fast zombies. Now, there will be readers who will argue that these aren't zombies based on a technicality. The film opens with a group of animal rights activists breaking into a lab where they see experiments being done on chimpanzees involving a "Rage Virus," which is highly contagious through any bodily fluid and acts fast. One of the activists unleashes a chimp, which immediately attacks, and thus, the spread begins. In just under a month, the virus spreads rapidly, collapsing society as we know it. Twenty-eight days later, at St Thomas' Hospital in London, a bicycle courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma he fell into after an accident. Not only does he find the hospital to be abandoned entirely, but it seems that all of London is as well. After a while of wandering, Jim discovers the true nightmare as to why there has been a mass exodus - a whole bunch of people who have been infected with a rage virus, making them angry, violent, aggressive, mindless "zombies." However, unlike your traditional zombie, these aren't SO hung up on the "meat" so much as just attacking and maiming as quickly and brutally as possible. After a while, he finds Selena (Naomie Harris), with whom he teams up to survive in this new world. Eventually, the two of them find refuge with a guy named Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns), and as most of these types of movies go, they all end up seeking refuge miles and miles away, having to venture there through masses of rage-filled "zombies." I won't say much beyond that, but what must be pointed out is the way the film ends takes the viewer by surprise, becoming less of a zombie movie and much more about "man vs man," and the last half-hour or so of this movie is a bad-ass time! This film deserves much more recognition for what it represents in the zombie genre, as it is one of the first zombie titles I can think of that focuses more on the people involved than on the situation itself. It further impresses me with its themes of violence and rage, questioning whether the real monsters are the mindless zombies running around who have no choice in what they're doing or us people who have our options. Still, it's about whether our choices make us better or worse than the monsters out there, all done in a movie that existed one year before the first publication of 'The Walking Dead!' Considering everything that exists in the zombie subgenre now (yes, I'm still calling them "zombies" for all intents and purposes), this might not pack the punch it once did upon its release, but it's still worth going back and checking out if you haven't seen it yet. It's very much like 'The Walking Dead' in the way it's executed, but it's probably a little better - even a little deeper when you step back to take a look at it. It may prove a little slow-moving for some, but it's all well worth the wait for the film's climactic sequence. In my books, it's among the better non-Romero zombie horrors. 4/5 |
Take 5 Reviews
RSS Feed
