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?
Well it’s certainly been a while since I had to do one of these! The ramp-up of the Omicron virus, the busy schedule of the Holiday season, and the fact that I lost power for almost a week right at the start of January meant that I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to before the year was up and I felt that my viewing history was a bit wanting. Without at least trying to catch up on some of the big movies of the year, is it even worth putting together a top ten list or try to give some sort of critical evaluation of that year in movies? Well… yes, I mean I always fall short of my movie-watching goal at the end of each year, but 2021 felt especially undermined by everything that happened, so we’ll be doing a few of these catch-ups to try and fill in some of those gaps! Let’s get started!!
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Spencer
Spencer and all the images you see in this review are owned by Neon
Directed by Pablo Larrain
The Royal Family gathers together for Christmas, but Diana (Kristen Stewart) has been struggling in recent years to keep up a brave face in the presence of her extended family; especially since the rules and traditions of the Royal Family are not the easiest thing to adhere to, even for someone in the best of mental health. Her husband Charles (Jack Farthing) is fed up with her change in behavior, and while her sons (Jack Nielen and Freddie Spry) are much more sympathetic, even they have trouble reconciling this rift between their mother and the rest of the family. Will Diana be able to continue on like this, or will this be the Christmas that changes everything?
Every once in a while I’ll see a movie that I should like a lot more than I actually do. I can see how they approach interesting themes with a great deal of substance and depth, I can tell that the cinematography is very well done while also reinforcing the themes, and I can appreciate the acting as well as the dialogue in the script. Yet even with all these elements working together, I’m left rather nonplussed; engaging with it on an intellectual level but just not feeling enough passion or excitement to walk away satisfied. To elaborate on the film’s strengths, we have an excellent performance from Kristin Stewart who has to carry this movie on her shoulders, the overwhelming weight of the literal crown on her head is palpable in the way that she carries herself and how she reacts to situations around her. The idea of feeling sorry for someone who is literally royalty is not exactly an easy feat, especially with wealth inequality and unrepresentative government indifference being such hot button issues these days, but it makes several smart choices with its narrative and style that it keeps those real-world implications from getting in the way of this one character’s story. It’s uncomfortable and deeply saddening at points with the machinery of the Monarchy proving impenetrable (no one thing can be blamed for each and every stuffy decision and all the soulless pieces of it perfectly fit to reinforce each other), but it also finds catharsis in Diana’s struggle for freedom and peace and never gets so dark as to be an unbearable tour of misery. Still, despite all these strong elements to the movie, I still felt detached from it all; so what about it is keeping me at bay? Well, I think the answer is in what I just said, which is a feeling of detachment. I don’t know the first thing about Princess Diana other than she died at some point while I was still in kindergarten, and the movie is in no particular hurry to provide answers to that question. To the script’s credit, they do provide enough context and details for this particular character to work (meaning they could easily have swapped her out for a fictional character in a made-up kingdom) but the script turns out to be a doubled-edged sword as it does a lot more telling than it does showing. We understand Diana’s ennui and how she is reacting to everything around her, but I still felt like I was observing her from afar instead of getting inside of her head. This may also just be a flaw on my part, being rather unintuitive or perhaps a bit callous, but the lack of context also left me unclear as to what actual consequences there would be if she just stopped playing along, and the big dramatic ending of the movie kind of loses something when you realize that Diana isn’t actually risking or giving up anything to get to where she needs to go. Sure, there’s the shame and disdain of her royal family that burrows deep into her psyche and are perhaps just as effective chains around her as the threat of genuine consequences would be, but it definitely feels like a critical piece of the puzzle is missing here. On top of that, the movie is very sparse with long shots of mundane action and a very straightforward score. None of it is bad per se, but there’s not a lot to perk your interest as far as spectacle; not in the sense of explosions or CG monsters, but I doubt it would have been too out of place for some dynamic camerawork or even some creative editing. This means the movie relies almost entirely on its script and performances which, once again are very good, but to me, a movie about someone’s psychological issues should use all the tools at the filmmaker’s disposal and it never seems to want to go past a certain level of offbeat imagination. I’m still gonna give this a recommendation if for no other reason than Stewart’s deeply heartbreaking performance, but it hews a bit too close to the cliché of the stuffy –drawing-room film than I would have expected from the studio that gave us I, Tonya. Perhaps expecting that level of creative verve would have been inappropriate for a movie whose themes are about the stifling conformity of the aristocracy (especially one that’s ostensibly based on real people), but a few more flourishes here and there wouldn’t have hurt!
The Reviewers Unite 