28 Time Periods Later (Danny Boyle/Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2002/2007/2025)

[Mr Sausage]

Spoiler

I assumed lead blondie was the kid from the prologue, making it unlikely that the boy was imagining any of that.

Also, the ending is “British”? What?

[black&huge]

Spoiler

I appreciated Boyle's wacky editing style but did not really take a liking to it. Regarding the weird video game two-shot camera pan kills it was something I was put off by at first but surprisingly warmed up tp but again, did not really like it. All three 28 films have a common structure though: amazing openings but middle to end acts quickly lose steam by retreating a big concept into a boring, typical conflict. I will separate 28 Days from this actually because I've grown to like it more and more through the years and I think moving the story to the Military doomsdayers wanting to repopulate via sex slaves was the best thing to progress the story for it still being a fairly isolated journey. 28 Weeks suffers from just having an unintersting cat and mouse ending but 28 Years just went off the mark with making it about the boy and his mother. At his point why not open the story to the wider world? they progressed these films terribly. The one chance to do it was here and they didn't do it.

[Monterey Jack]

Spoiler

I assumed lead blondie was the kid from the prologue, making it unlikely that the boy was imagining any of that.

Spoiler

I get that Jack O'Connell is playing the boy from the prologue, but I'm saying that the fanciful costuming, rock music, editing, "cool" fight movies and the like are what the boy is imagining. I suspect he was saved by O'Connell's pack of survivors, but that's the way the boy viewed it, or something. It's WAY too arch and goofy to fit into the tone of the movie that preceded it. If that's not the intention, then I have serious questions...

Also, the ending is “British”? What?

That's what I've heard on social media from Brits, that the ending is something that American viewers might not understand, so I'm sort of at a loss.

[tenia]

Haven't seen the movie so can't speak specifically about this, but what you're describing seems less "British" than just Danny Boyle.

[The Curious Sofa]

Not seen this yet, but I've ever been a huge fan of Boyle. I find his directorial flourishes irritating (the jittery cam when the infected attack) and and many of his films, including 28 Days Later, suffer from a weak last act. I now find it hard to revisit because the decision to shoot on a consumer digital camera has dated poorly. Alex Garland is a better director and I would be more excited had he directed this.

[ex-cowboy]

Haven't seen the movie so can't speak specifically about this, but what you're describing seems less "British" than just Danny Boyle.

Spoiler

I saw this yesterday and I presume what they mean by 'British' is that O'Connell and his group are all visually styled on Jimmy Savile - and appear to all be named something 'Jimmy' based. Whether that has any narrative significance, other than the fact that in 28's alternative timeline Savile was very likely killed before his crimes became well-known, we'll have wait and see

Overall I rather enjoyed it. There are definitely some sequences that didn't work for me

Spoiler

the rather effective flight from the Alpha across the causeway was undermined by some pretty naff music, which was doubly unfortunate given how effective a lot of the score is at other times - the placing of Isla's skull being another notable exception when the peculiarities of much of the music gives way to a rather typical score

, and I would agree with some of what has been written earlier about the film's faults. However, I'm not too sure I'd completely agree regarding the portrayal of feminine vs masculine qualities. The one character who is arguably the most successful in surviving

Spoiler

having done it, as far as we know, single-handedly for almost 30 years

exudes many of the 'feminine qualities' which, according to some, are too weak for this world of pure survival. Alongside fully engaging with death - not just of individuals but with entire communities, societies and ways of life - he also seems to live in more of a 'balance' with the world of the infected than we have come across so far in the franchise.

Having not seen any of Boyle's recent output, I was presently surprised at how playful and even experimental (to a relative degree) the film's visual form is, particularly in the first 30 mins (which as mentioned elsewhere is the best part). There are some quite interesting quotations of archive footage (somewhat undermined later, it should be said, when some of the same footage is re-used in a far more obvious fashion) and some of the brief pov shots early on actually recalled, to my mind, the 'animist' camera work in Jissoji's This Transient Life and Mandala.

[Orlac]

I did appreciate the aural nod to Herzog's Nosferatu but, dear God, that ending...

[bdsweeney]

I just came back from seeing this and thought it was ... okay. Agree that the start was effective and (as mentioned by one of the earlier posts) was annoyed by the style Boyle employed for the kill scenes.

As to the end of the film, remember that the flag you see isn't the Union Jack but the St George Cross alone (and, at some point in the film, there's a shot of it burning). And that relates to my view that the film is a pretty obvious allegory of:

Spoiler

Brexit ... complete with the fact that the European mainland is doing fine and that Great Britain has been quarantined from/vanquished by the continent. I think the fact that all the characters are Anglo-English also points to this fact (... we don't want any invaders breaching our little village/Little Britain) and that the gang which turn up at the end are all dressed up like 'chavs' in their leisurewear and tracksuits (which I though was a 90s/early 2000s thing ... but I guess that makes sense for it to still be a thing in this now alternative timeline that the film exists in).

[Mr Sausage]

However, I'm not too sure I'd completely agree regarding the portrayal of feminine vs masculine qualities. The one character who is arguably the most successful in surviving

Spoiler

having done it, as far as we know, single-handedly for almost 30 years

exudes many of the 'feminine qualities' which, according to some, are too weak for this world of pure survival. Alongside fully engaging with death - not just of individuals but with entire communities, societies and ways of life - he also seems to live in more of a 'balance' with the world of the infected than we have come across so far in the franchise.

Spoiler

Ralph Fiennes character surviving via this balance with his environment would make perfect thematic sense if the movie were an I am Legend scenario—which the film seemed to be setting up, right? There’s that nuclear family of bloated zombies complete with little kid, whom the super masculine father can see no humanity in and so just uses as easy kills (tho’ there’s an awareness somewhere as he can’t bring himself to shoot the toddler, who runs in fear rather than going into a mindless rage). And then there’s the whole thing with the baby, which I thought was going to be the Alpha’s child, leading to a third act cat-and-mouse chase where the Alpha is shown to have some human emotions, etc. But it never develops, the kid has an uneventful walk home, and the island community aren’t revealed as the true monsters (despite the gestures, the infected remain mindless savages whose first impulse is seemingly just to kill).

So in the movie as we have it, Ralph Fiennes doesn’t offer any effective contrast to the island. We don’t know how he actually survives, or if it’d be effective for a large community, including children. And the island community is doing just fine. The movie’s critique of masculine values doesn’t go far enough to undermine the island as a viable place to live. It’s shown to be a place of flawed but decent people. Even the dad’s flaws are given a pretty gentle depiction; and his worst moment of masculine aggression, punching the wall, is out of step with the patience and care he’d consistently shown to that point, so I had trouble buying it from a character perspective.

The whole living against vs with the environment theme never gets off the ground. So it’s not about feminine values being too ‘weak’ for survival (I hope that was directed at some of the film’s characters and not me!), but that they’re non-applicable to the world the filmmakers actually constructed. If they had gone the I Am Legend route they had set up, then feminine values would be crucial to survival and the film would become coherent. In the movie as we have it, tho’, the necessity or superiority of feminine values is asserted but never demonstrated.

[ex-cowboy]

I just came back from seeing this and thought it was ... okay. Agree that the start was effective and (as mentioned by one of the earlier posts) was annoyed by the style Boyle employed for the kill scenes.

As to the end of the film, remember that the flag you see isn't the Union Jack but the St George Cross alone (and, at some point in the film, there's a shot of it burning). And that relates to my view that the film is a pretty obvious allegory of:

Spoiler

Brexit ... complete with the fact that the European mainland is doing fine and that Great Britain has been quarantined from/vanquished by the continent. I think the fact that all the characters are Anglo-English also points to this fact (... we don't want any invaders breaching our little village/Little Britain) and that the gang which turn up at the end are all dressed up like 'chavs' in their leisurewear and tracksuits (which I though was a 90s/early 2000s thing ... but I guess that makes sense for it to still be a thing in this now alternative timeline that the film exists in).

Spoiler

Had actually forgotten about the Brexit metaphor - it's most obvious as you say with the idea of containment and Europe being effectively isolated from contagion. Was mulling it over whilst watching and it falls down quite quickly when one actually engages with the myriad of reasons for Brexit, and how these interlink with the resurgence of the far-right across Europe (which doesn't fit neatly with the film's idea of anti-EU sentiment/xenophobic nationalism as a uniquely English (or 'British' - plenty of Welsh, Scottish and people in NI, largely on the DUP/loyalist side, voted for it too)) 'disease'. Though this rather simplistic treatment of the issue would fit with the kind of liberal fence-sitting and hand-wringing we've seen from Garland, particularly in Civil War. I suppose if we're being charitable it could be argued that Britain's isolation from Europe is actually portrayed, to some extent, as two-way, what with there seemingly having been no attempt to rescue or even engage with those not infected left in Britain. I say this as a critique of the film, not your reading of it. True, all the characters are Anglo-English, but they're also all, with one notable exception (at least as far as I can remember, there may have been some incidental islanders who weren't) Northern, and Brexit was far from simply a northern issue, unless Garland is making some point about the higher ideals of learned bourgeois southerners, though I'm not sure Boyle would let him! Whilst the film takes place exclusively in the north of England (barring the opening sequence), if the film is to be seen as (at least in part) a metaphor, this lack of diversity seems, in my mind, to undermine it.

I'm not sure the gang at the end can be simply (or at all) seen as 'chavs' - the style of dress and hair cuts/colour is far too obviously reminiscent of a certain one-time 'national treasure'. But reading them as 'chavs' in some ways makes more sense on a sub-textual level than my reading of it, so who knows...

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, a brexit metaphor is hard to sustain in a situation where the isolationism is imposed from without. And where the infected and infecting 'other' are fellow britons, none of whom are isolationists.

[The Curious Sofa]

Spoiler

I assumed lead blondie was the kid from the prologue, making it unlikely that the boy was imagining any of that.

Also, the ending is “British”? What?

Spoiler

The ending reveals that the boy who survived at the beginning has become the leader of a cult centred around Jimmy Savile. A hugely popular entertainer and media personality in the '70s and '80s, Savile was revealed after his death to be Britain's most prolific sex offender, making him one of the UK's biggest real-life monsters. What makes it worse is that the establishment very likely protected him all this time, despite the clear signs that something was not right, and despite victims being silenced for decades. While we have to wait and see how that plays out in the sequel, I got serious A Clockwork Orange vibes from the ending.

Otherwise, I thought the film was OK; not great. There isn't much new material to be mined, and we've seen many similar scenarios before. I've never been keen on Danny Boyle's associative editing style and use of pop/rock music, though the film does look stunningly beautiful at times. despite a great cast, the characters are nothing special and the "initiation rite" is a post-apocalyptic trope I can do without be now. I still think 28 Weeks Later is the best of the lot, despite it being retconned out of existence in the opening text. I'm curios where Nia DaCosta will take this, I liked what she did with Candyman.

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, I get the Saville allusion. But it just makes that whole ending even less explicable. Why end a humourless movie with such a goofy scene?

[The Curious Sofa]

You were questioning the ending being "British" and Jimmy Savile was both a very British celebrity and then a very British scandal. He wouldn't mean much to international audiences but being quite familiar with the whole thing, to ma a Jimmy Savile cult is rather creepy.
And I guess the Droogs were goofy till they weren't and I could see them be the antagonists of the next movie, with their evil clown vibes I didn't have a problem with the ending, I had a problem with the whole been-there-done-that quality of the film.

[cantinflas]

I thought 28 Years Later was great. Gotta love the big dick energy of the alphas. The ending is a classic and reading the bewildered reactions to it has made it even funnier. There's plenty of humour scattered throughout the movie ("Alas, poor Erik") and the opening Teletubbies massacre combined with the demented priest sets the whole tone anyway. Very much gave early Peter Jackson vibes. I guess if you don't respond to that you're not gonna be on Boyle's wavelength here.

I can recognise that the tropes are all there which may be offputting but I reckon they're largely overshadowed by the focus shift in the second half plus Boyle and Dod Mantle's experimental approach. Some of those shots and framing were mesmerising and the bullet time kills added a real visceral element. That sequence when they first cross the causeway interspliced with the war imagery and the Kipling poem was amazing.

[cantinflas]

The Bone Temple

[cantinflas]

The Bone Temple is awesome. Continues seamlessly from the previous one with Spike being initiated into the Jimmies and then what follows is a dichotomy of action between sadistic torture and attempting to undo mindless violence.

This Frankenstein's monster element leads to a wondrous moment of reawakening that weaves together glimmers of memory popping in and out and reconstituting.

Deliriously Satanic and sacreligious, a sequence towards the end will leave you in a state of metal ecstasy.

[The Curious Sofa]

The Bone Temple is better than the previous film, but not by much. Perhaps it's because I've seen too much zombie media, but I found this rehash of the 'humans are the real monsters' plot rather tired. It's at the centre of countless zombie movies (including 28 Days Later) and every season of The Walking Dead introduced us to a new bunch of psychos, usually resulting in outlandish torture sequences.

Watching both films back to back last night, I liked the first one even less. I never felt that invested in the story of the central family, which the film clearly wants us to be. At least for the sequel Nia DaCosta tones down Danny Boyle's annoying directorial mannerisms (and she ups the penis count). Speaking of which, Ralph Fiennes is by the best thing about the movie and his swerve into Spinal Tap territory is genuinely funny. The man deserves award's recognition.

[Matt]

Fiennes has been so good for so long in so many different kinds of films. He'll be one of those actors who never wins a competitive Oscar but gets an honorary award (which will actually have him in the fine company of Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, and Peter O'Toole). Or he'll win one when he's 82 like Christopher Plummer.

[cantinflas]

Strange Days and Spider are the ones for me.

But yeah his performance in Bone Temple particularly the Iron Maiden sequence is an all-timer.