Cinema Dispatch: 28 Years Later

28 Years Later and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Danny Boyle

I don’t know how controversial of an opinion this is, but I’ve never been a fan of the 28 films. That’s not to say they’re bad, but I simply didn’t find them all that memorable; especially the second one, of which the train scene at the beginning is the only piece that’s stuck in my memory. I was shocked to see how many very famous people were in that movie and how little impression they must have left on me, but they were also movies I watched before I started this whole film critic thing, so maybe I just never saw them in the right frame of mind. Perhaps that changes today, as Danny Boyle’s Faustian bargain with this franchise has demanded another entry nearly three decades after the first one. Will this be another well regarded entry for the Zombie genre, or has time made this series more decrepit than the walking dead themselves? Let’s find out!!

Twenty-eight years after the initial outbreak, which would be twenty-seven years, eleven months and two days since Jim woke up and twenty-seven years and four months since Don proved himself to be the crappiest dad ever, the world has adopted a lock-and-leave policy with the entire British Isle and has left survivors to fend for themselves in self-sustaining communities while making sure none of the zombies even think about taking a dip in the English Channel via a constant patrol of warships. One such survivor is Spike (Alfie Williams) who, in accordance with post-apocalypse tradition, is now a man at the age of twelve and is ready to shoot zombies to death with bows and arrows. He takes his first journey from his protected island community to the mainland and manages to survive with the help of his dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but let’s just say that experience was rather mixed for poor Spike, and with rumors of a doctor being the one to start the conspicuous fires he saw out on the hills, he decides that there’s more important things to do than just scraping by with his dopey dad. Wrapping up all the supplies and courage, this twelve-year-old can muster; he sneaks his sick mother (Jodie Comer) onto the mainland in hopes of finding a cure for her illness through this mysterious doctor everyone else seems so afraid of. Will Spike be able to keep himself and his mother alive through the zombie hoards, especially with the terrifying Alpha Zombies roaming the countryside? Who else is holed up on this island, and will they help Spike on his quest to find the doctor, or be an even worse nightmare than the zombies themselves? Seems like this wasn’t the best thought out plan, but then again, what else did this kid have to look forward to anyway? Another forty years of unseasoned beets and scavenged cans of baked beans?

“Seriously, mom! Why did you let me do this?”     “ME!? You’re the one who dragged me out of bed while I was still catatonic!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Yesterday

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Yesterday and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Danny Boyle

This may be a movie about music from fifty years ago, yet the premise is even older than that as the idea of a hapless someone getting a shortcut to fame and fortune is one of the most basic cornerstones of literature.  When you take that premise and make it about something other than say measurable wealth and status (i.e. Aladdin) to instead focus on some sort of perceived skill or art form (i.e. music), you can run into a few issues; namely that you have to sell the audience on the perceived greatness of something that is rather subjective.  You either have to play into the impossibility of someone ACTUALLY making the greatest music ever like with Tenacious D’s Tribute or even Fish Story, or your stuck trying to write it yourself and just ignore the disconnect (*cough* Harsh Mistress *cough*).  The workaround for all that though is what we’ve got here which is a jukebox musical of sorts where the songs being played are widely considered (at least somewhat) to be the greatest of all time, and in this era where Musical Biopics are now in vogue, it was probably the best way for yet another Beatles tribute to stand out among the crowd.  So then!  Does this movie manage to capture the magic of that one band from Liverpool, or will this be a bigger stain on their legacy than Magical Mystery Tour THE MOVIE?  Let’s find out!!

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is the typical struggling artist who spends his time stocking store shelves between gigs that no one bothers to see.  His manager and best friend Ellie (Lily James) still believes in him and his amazing songwriting skills, but if it hasn’t happened yet then it probably isn’t going to happen and so he decides that now is the time to hang it up.  The universe on the other hand has other plans for him because as he’s riding home on his bike that night, there’s a global power outage that no one ever finds an explanation for but did lead to Jack getting hit with a bus; breaking his guitar, his front teeth, and his spirit even more.  After a lengthy recovery though, he soon realizes that no one remembers who The Beatles or any of their amazing songs.  You know, songs like Yesterday, A Hard Day’s Night, and… others.  Okay, so there were A LOT of songs, but Jack can surely remember enough of them to finally have a chance to be the musical star he’s always wanted to be!  I mean these songs are culturally important and should exist in some form for the betterment of mankind, so Jack is practically doing a public service here, right!?  So that’s what Jack does as he starts recording classic tracks like I Want to Hold Your Hand and Let it Be (seemingly unconcerned with the arc the band took in their music) as well as songs like Back in the USSR which sounds a bit retro now, but still jams!  It takes a bit of time, but he does eventually start to get a following and it seems like all that success is just around the corner if he can just stick it out through the hardships and machinations of the music industry, but with so much changing so quickly and his loved ones seeming to get further and further away from him, is this truly what Jack wants now?  On top of that, if HE remembers who The Beatles are then there has to be other’s out there too, right?  Can he keep up the lies before this house of cards comes crumbling down, or will everyone be cool with it since no one knows who the fudge John Paul George and Ringo are anyway?  Most importantly, is he gonna get a mediocre Hanna-Barbera cartoon as well!?

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“Thank you everyone, and make sure to watch my web series!  We are sponsored by Audible!!”

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