Alfie Williams, Jodie Comer, and Ralph Fiennes in 28 Years Later
28 YEARS LATER
Because its predecessors were 2002's 28 Days Later and 2007's 28 Weeks Later, director Danny Boyle's and screenwriter Alex Garland's 28 Years Later is the end of a trilogy. Because it's 2025 and the horror thriller is recognizable IP, that means it's also the (planned) beginning of a trilogy, with the already-filmed sequel subtitled The Bone Temple scheduled for release in January and a third installment apparently in the works. One one level, this is a relief, as it means that Boyle's and Garland's weirdly static, deeply disappointing freakout may merely wind up a partial bummer – the two unsatisfying hours we have to endure before getting to four superior ones. Based on the current evidence, though, I'm not convinced that this project will vastly improve. In truth, if its final three minutes are any indication, things are only gonna get worse.
As a big fan of Boyle's original and director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's followup, I take zero pleasure in reporting this. Although the shrieking, homicidally aggressive “infected” in these movies aren't zombies, for the simple reason that they're still alive, the first two 28s are among the finest zombie-adjacent fright films ever made, largely due to the empathy they inspire. These relentless and alarmingly speedy beings suffering the “rage virus” may want to end humanity as we know it – though even that “want” is debatable – but they were also once like us; despite their contaminated blood, they are us. And the series' authors (Garland wrote the first one; Fresnabillo, Rowan Joffé, E.L. Lavigne, and Jesus Olmo collaborated on the second) made sure to provide plenty of non-infected protagonists to root for … along with a few antagonists, most of them military figures, to root against. For all of their genre trappings, the 28s were profoundly human stories: grounded, emotional, recognizable. That's what made them so affecting, and so scary. With 28 Years Later, however, we appear to be exiting the realm of realism and entering the land of the mythic, and I'm not sure that, inspiration-wise, trading George A, Romero for J.R.R. Tolkien is any kind of upgrade.
If the numbers aren't lying, Boyle's and Garland's latest is a futuristic tale, one that takes place in the besieged continental Europe of 2030. 28 Weeks Later climaxed with the unruly not-quite-dead descending upon Paris. But information quickly gleaned in the new film tells us that they were successfully pushed back to Great Britain, where the infected now roam the mainland and small communities of uninfected survive on British Isles under strict quarantine. Among their number is 12-year-old Spike (Afie Williams), whose mother Isla (Jodie Comer) is suffering from a mysterious, evidently brain-related malady. Meanwhile, his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has decided that Spike is at last ready to travel with him, on foot, to the mainland, where they'll pick up desperately needed supplies and, if he's lucky, Spike will have the chance to kill his first infected. And so, walking across the causeway that appears only during low tide, and armed only with bows and arrows, off Spike and Jamie go – the youth's heroic quest not entirely dissimilar to, though quite a bit gorier than, those undertaken by Bilbo Baggins and Frodo.
As a general rule, when reviewing, I try not to expend too much energy (or wordage) on plot exposition, partly because I find the recounting of it dull, and partly because narratives are inherently more fun when they're left unspoiled. Yet 28 Years Later puts me in a difficult position, because it's nearly all exposition, the ceaseless information dump alleviated only by the infrequent faux-zombie attack. For close to two solid hours, we just keep learning things: how the island community has continued to function without electricity or contact from the outside world; how the infected have, over the decades, evolved/devolved into a number of distinct species of varying speeds and intellects; how the mainland is patrolled, and by whom; how scattered sects of humanity continue to thrive among the diseased. Ordinarily, I'm grateful for any movie that keeps my brain active. But every time a new character pops up here – and in three increasingly ludicrous instances, they pop up at the last possible second to save Spike's life – we know we're in for several subsequent minutes of conversation regarding who they are and why they're there and what their presences have to do with the world of the 28 films … . There's so much explaining in Boyle's film that when Ralph Fiennes belatedly appeared as a friendlier version of Colonel Kurtz, I half-expected him to pull out a flow chart.
What Boyle and Garland effectively give us in 28 Years Later isn't a story so much as the makings of a story. (Had The Walking Dead not stolen its thunder more than a decade ago, a limited series might've been the preferable way to go.) Yet even the makings tend to not make much sense. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that after Spike makes his initial trek to the mainland, he returns home yet promptly makes another one. There's some internal logic to the why of it – he wants to save Mom's life – but the plan also doesn't hold water given the traumatizing effects of his first visit, when he realized how close he came to dying. What makes Spike think his survival instincts and skills have significantly sharpened after a mere 12 hours? Despite the distraction he creates, how do he and his traveling companion escape the heavily fortified island so easily? How does Isla manage to conveniently regain her mental clarity only when situations require it? How does that newly birthed baby know exactly when to not cry?
Oh yeah: There's a newly birthed baby involved. This is a Danny Boyle genre gumbo, so of course there are unexpected detours galore. (I'm surprised that infant didn't end up crawling on a ceiling.) And some of the strangeness is intensely welcome. I adored our time spent with Fiennes' Dr. Ian Kelson and his memento mori tribute to the deceased, and was beyond grateful for the comedy of Edvin Ryding's Swedish NATO solider Erik, whose iPhone “girlfriend” is unknowingly mocked by Spike for her collagen-swollen lips. Yet even when I was intermittently enjoying myself, the diversions felt like wheel-spinning in a vehicle that wasn't going anywhere, and this was especially noticeable during the attack sequences. There are a bunch of good, grisly kills, and the actions of the marauding, frequently naked creatures are edited within an inch of their lives. But Boyle's and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle's habit of freeze-framing the visceral impact, which seemed so novel 23 years ago, now comes off as self-consciously affected, and tends to impede the momentum every time it should be ramping up. I never before thought my gut response to one of these scenes would be a yawn.
No one could successfully argue that Boyle's latest isn't well acted, and even when I was bemoaning the experience itself, I was invested in the performances of the ravaged Comer, the admirably expressive Taylor-Johnson, the sweet and sensible Christopher Fulford as family friend Sam, and Williams, whose wholly committed portrayal is reminiscent of the similarly protean work of Adolescence's Owen Cooper. Plus, you know, we get a bald Ralph Fiennes waxing poetic and covered in iodine, which might be enough for a recommendation. Yet 28 Years Later, which remains all buildup and no payoff, still trafficks in character sketches rather than fleshed-out characters, and I'm still somewhat reeling from the gonzo WTF?!?-ness of the pre-end-credits kicker that introduces even more figures that will no doubt require further exposition/explanation in January. I didn't like this movie. But considering who Spike's companions are destined to be, at least at the start, my hunch is I'm going to loathe the next one.
ELIO
Poor Pixar. By which I naturally mean poor very very rich Pixar. It's the Orson Welles of animation studios, having opened on such a bang – and with so many bangers in a row – that releases from the second half of its feature-film existence can't help but elicit critical harumphs of “It's not as good as (insert practically any title from 1995 to 2010).” So maybe it's time we stopped waiting for the next masterpiece and started appreciating Pixar for the non-masterpieces (and non-sequels) that are still head and shoulders above the norm. I'm thinking specifically of 2020's Onward, which found enormous heart and laughs in its goofy half-a-body premise, and Elemental, whose supreme visual wit made up for its bland story, and now Elio, which is fast and flaky and a consistently terrific time. You don't have to squint to see the more soulful, more devastatingly Pixar-ian film this entertainment might've been, say, 15 to 20 years ago. Yet the good we're given is more than good enough, and one of its comic conceits is so exemplary that it's wholly deserving of a concurrent feature of its own.
The gist here is that recently orphaned 11-year-old Elio (Yonas Kibreab), now being raised by his loving yet overwhelmed Air Force major Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), is feeling understandably lonely, and wants nothing more than for extraterrestrials to whisk him off Earth and into a faraway galaxy. Through impressively convoluted means, he gets his wish, and one of the more charming moments in recent movies must be the kid's reaction when a tractor beam lifts Elio off the ground and into the spacecraft, as there's nothing resembling fear or panic. The giddy, laughing Elio is thrilled, he's ecstatic, and grows more so when the ship's assemblage of aliens, mistaking the boy for Earth's leader, invite him to join their Communiverse of superior intellects. Inevitably, of course, there's a Big Bad (Brad Garrett's toothy Lord Grigon) to contend with, as well as the issue of how Aunt Olga will react to Elio's absence. But Julia Cho's, Mark Hammer's, and Mike Jones' script delivers inventive “solutions” to these problems. The Lord Grigon issue is handled by Elio convincing the ogre's larva-like son Glordon (an endearing Remy Edgerly) to act as a kidnap-ee and “bargaining chip,” much to the creature's delight. The Aunt Olga issue is handled by a replicate Elio – one apparently crafted through DNA from Elio's boogers – being sent to Earth in his place. Both scenarios yield constant comic dividends.
To get the mildly unfortunate, if unsurprising, news out of the way, this feature by the directing triad of Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, and Adrian Molina isn't among Pixar's greatest. In the past, the studio has hardly shied away from depictions of debilitating sadness, and I wouldn't necessarily want to meet anyone who didn't weep buckets at certain moments in Toy Story 2, Up, and Inside Out. (Last summer's Inside Out 2 – Pixar's biggest hit to date – also provided the most wrenching visualization of a panic attack that most of us have ever seen.) But Elio's grief over the loss of his parents is strangely taken as a given; all told, this antic, imaginative, vocally expressive child who routinely cracks wise seems as fully functional as any other kid, and doesn't appear at all hobbled by interior pain. The requisite sci-fi action, presumably included to keep young boys interested, is rudimentary. And even though the climactic Life Lessons are touchingly delivered, there's little pleasure in watching them land precisely on cue. I was annoyed when the single most prevalent scripted cliché of 21st-century blockbusters – a hard-earned sigh of “Let's go home” – didn't arrive the exact second I predicted it to. It actually arrived three seconds later. That just felt like poor timing.
Still, Elio is mostly a gas. Beginning with an all-knowing being's obvious disappointment that an 11-year-old doesn't care to know the secrets of the universe (and would rather know who would win in a battle of gorillas), the clever, stunningly well-animated activity aboard the spacecraft is sweetly bizarre and sometimes deliriously silly, enlivened by winning vocal turns by Garrett and, as a chirpy liquid supercomputer, the great Shirley Henderson. Absolutely everything involving Glordon is a hoot, from the speed with which he accepts Elio's best-friendship to his marveling at the detail on his eventual warrior carapace. (“It's bespoke!”)
And even though the subplot doesn't get nearly the screen time it deserves, I was totally in the tank for the escapades of faux Elio after he showed up on Earth as the polite, helpful, considerate boy he thinks Aunt Olga is expecting and that she is in no way expecting. Pixar has certainly treated us to stronger works than Elio. But I'm not sure the studio has yet offered a seemingly throwaway detour as comically juicy as Olga's attempts to prove that the nephew she's raising is a complete impostor. (And unlike the audience, she didn't see “Elio” accidentally cut off his thumb with gardening shears and nonchalantly reattach it.) While those outer-space sequences are pretty wonderful, for sheer hysterical weirdness, nothing in Pixar's latest matches the image of a single strand of hair – one surreptitiously taken from “Elio” by Olga – doggedly creeping along the floor hoping to be reunited with its neighbors. One scene this funny and inventive and nuts is enough to extend your faith in Pixar for a full decade more.
BRIDE HARD
The word count has likely been shortened by now. But back in 1992, in Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player, we were told that a successful movie pitch was one that could be effectively delivered in 25 words. I'm reasonably sure the pitch for screenwriter Shaina Steinberg's Bride Hard began and ended with its title. Seriously, what else do you need to know? It's Bridesmaids meets Die Hard! It practically writes itself! And director Simon West's action comedy suggests that it very well might have, which makes me endlessly grateful for the reservoirs of comic talent, both on- and off-screen, determined to keep this thing funny despite the one-joke-at-best nature of its narrative.
In the film, Rebel Wilson's Sam is a secret agent who goes into attack mode when larcenous hoodlums infiltrate the wedding of her bestie Betsy. Hey – that's 25 words! It's also 25 more than the recounting of this admittedly buffoonish farce likely deserves, its plotting agonizingly contrived when it isn't simply nonsensical. I still laughed on occasion and smiled almost throughout. Unfortunately, the typically phlegmatic Stephen Dorff plays the de rigueur gun-toting bad-ass, and I'm sorry to say that the 51-year-old is continuing his roughly 30-year streak of acting like he's too good for every role he plays. (Given his filmography, barring one not-bad Sofia Coppola outing, he may not be wrong.) However, I'm delighted to say that literally everyone else involved seems to be having a much better time, including the team that doesn't bother trying to hide the crappy green-screen effects, and the props designers whose purportedly heavy bricks of gold get kicked around like packing peanuts. Like Dorff, the entire Bride Hard contingency seems to inherently understand they're working on a high-concept piece of piffle. Unlike him, they appear determined to make the best of it, and to an insanely unanticipated degree, they succeed.
One of the tragic effects of there being fewer slapstick comedies in wide release these days is that we're being denied the joy of watching smart, inventive actors make significant comic impacts with relatively little in the way of screen time. So despite them not getting much to do, it was an absolute treat to witness the game, winning contributions of Sam Huntington, Michael O'Neill, and Colleen Camp, who perform their functional duties with aplomb. Justin Hartley riotously upends the cliché of the handsome, half-bearded best man who, in this telling, is far stupider than his great looks imply. The bridesmaid Greek chorus of Anna Chlumsky, Gigi Zumbado, and the priceless Da'Vine Joy Randolph are a constant kick. Complain, if you must, about Randolph not getting the roles she deserves after her Academy Award win for The Holdovers, but few celebrities have seemingly enjoyed their post-Oscars celebrity more than she has. [Randolph's crooning of Khia's “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” to her pregnant pal's tummy is unquestionably this movie's high point.]
Anna Camp, as Betsy, is given a legitimately, unexpectedly touching narrative arc and continues to be a massively underrated farceur. rekindling blessed memories of her type-A psychopath on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. And despite the obviousness of her stunt doubles doing a lot of her heavy lifting in the action sequences, Wilson is a charismatic, admirably randy blast, most of her finest lines sounding completely improvised, as when she notes, rightfully, that her bridesmaid look suggests Ariana Grande as a Real Housewife. It's the merest wisp of a movie, but Bride Hard – the type of time-passing enjoyment we used to see at the cineplex with far greater regularity – might conceivably have a deserved shelf life as a guilt-free streaming diversion. Unlike the title of their first collaboration in 2012, the performers' latest isn't pitch perfect, but it's nice to see that Wilson's and Camp's repartee still is.
