Up next is the followup to Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, itself a followup to what was at least back then a pretty new and iconic take on the whole zombie apocalypse subgenre. I did enjoy last year’s entry for the most part, though I was left wondering just how they would followup an ending that was akin to Saving Private Ryan suddenly gorging on ten tubs of ice cream and letting loose with robot ninjas at the very last scene.
Ironically, the film is actually more focused, grounded, and darker than that would indicate—and actually is an immediate sequel that is able to one-up its predecessor!
How? Essentially, our director this time, Nia DaCosta focuses right down onto our cast now that the setting has already been set up—we have the focus on Jack O’Connel, a roving marauder in this post-apocalyptic Britain who styles himself on the disgraced abuser TV presenter Jimmy Saville (as pointed out, in this timeline Saville’s actions were almost certainly never outed—so he remains a symbol of an old world to cling onto, for all the irony you can take from that). ‘Lord Jimmy’ thus takes our prior lead young Spike (Alfie Williams) to join his band of killers, as they take on a murderous course to once again cross paths with Dr. Ian—played again by Ralph Fiennes, who’s on his own quest to see if the deranged Infected can perhaps be reached out to somehow.
There’s enough here that most of our players feel well-rounded enough—even our main Infected, the behemoth ‘Samson’ (Chi Lewis-Perry), who gets his own storyline as for once this actually delves into the whole notion that all of these mindless reavers were once actual people below. In fact, there’s perhaps a much juicier theme than perhaps some of the political musings from last time—that of what actually lies under the hood of people, good, bad, or everything in-between. Jimmy’s band have their own twisted bonds, and perhaps reflect those people severed of connections until they latch onto any demented figure who can give them a pre-made story to cling onto—as we see too often in reality.
While the scope isn’t as big this time around, there’s also a return back to the horror emphasis, with some pretty grisly stuff early on—but there was one pretty unexpected moment later where the surrealism or perhaps over the top wackiness seen before in the series come back, in a way that did have me grinning a bit.
All in all, The Bone Temple actually worked way better than I thought it would—I do recommend this one much more heartily than the prior one, with a consistent tone and solid meat to the proceedings throughout. Boyle has mused about another one, even if this does finish on less of an immediate sequel hook than before—either way, in a world that feels like it’s just a notch away from an actual Rage outbreak more than ever, this one going back to talking about the humanity underneath feels refreshing enough…
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