Courtney Howard // Film Critic
28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE
Rated R, 1 hour and 49 minutes
Directed by: Nia DaCosta
Starring: Jack O’Connell, Ralph Fiennes, Chi Lewis-Parry, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman
With 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, we’re now 4 films and a few decades into a fan-favorite franchise capturing the frightening after effects on a plague-ravaged people. Nia DaCosta’s chapter – written by series stalwart Alex Garland – posits that what makes this new world order truly terrifying isn’t exactly the diseased infected, but rather the horrors created by compassionless humans left behind. However, instead of threading that concept through the fabric of these characters’ lives, the versatile filmmakers are distracted by nonsensical elements that subtract from the fun. It’s not bad, per se. It’s just not something entirely worth rejoicing.
Our tale picks up where we last left off on the timeline. Teen Spike (Alfie Williams) has been captured by a frenzied pack of tracksuit-clad Jimmys, who’ve been roaming the countryside, terrorizing any survivor in their path. Their sadistic leader Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) preaches the gospel as he knows it, sent to him by an unheard voice of “Old Nick,” who commands him to bestow certain charities on people. To him, that word means the opposite of the Christianity terminology. He enacts cruel, sinister stunts, ranging from having his Seven Fingers (what he calls his demented disciples) dance like characters on TELETUBBIES to instructing them to skin civilians alive.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is quietly biding his time collecting more remnants of the dead for his memento mori. His trek, once again, leads him into the path of Alpha bearded baddie, Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). But this time, he has other plans for him. Kelson discovers that by drugging Samson, he can heal him, physically by cleaning up his wounds and internally by befriending the beast. Kelson’s hope is to find a treatment for the affliction ravaging their quarantined homeland. However, there’s a ticking clock attached to his predicament in more ways than one once the Jimmys arrive, bringing along their signature brand of havoc and mayhem.
Garland’s script, and DaCosta’s translation of it, is fairly spotty at best. Their film has two modes: off and full blast. There’s no attempt at modulating the kinetic nature of its life-force. During the best times, the energy surges with vigorous strength and an audacious spirit. Dark comedic underpinnings of the situational circumstances add a humorous jest to the dire danger. Widescreen vistas of Mother Nature’s serenity are brilliantly juxtaposed against mankind’s bitter, vengeful rage. DaCosta and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt capture the beauty of a conversation between friend and foe through an absurdist lens. And a picturesque barn becomes a violent playground for the Jimmys.
DaCosta and editor Jake Roberts’ use of montage is unparalleled, specifically as we see Kelson and Samson forging a friendship in their unfamiliar world to Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World.” Gore is gnarly and the violence feels visceral – more so than the infected’s bloodlust. The dramatics all culminate in a wonderfully spectacle driven finale involving cheeky theatrical chutzpah, a series of pyrotechnics and Fiennes delivering perfectly pitched character work. Though our new year is young, this sequence will go down as one of the best needle drops of the year. It’s worth the price of admission to see this sequence in its big screen glory.
Yet immediately following those high peaks, the electricity conducted plummets to zero and remains there for too long. While I appreciate that this chapter is less about the infected’s inflicted brutality on society and more about the impact of man’s inhumanity to man (and who chooses measures to counteract abject ruthlessness), the manner in which the message is delivered desperately deserved better craft and care. Beyond Kelson, the narrative suffers from a dearth of earned character moments. Those are few and fleeting
Character motivations are questionable and don’t logistically align with basic human behavior. Yes, it’s an inhumane world these characters inhabit, but human interactions still need logic to guide them. Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman) is set-up to be the most diabolical nihilist within Jimmy Crystal’s apostles. She even looks it with an upside down cross branded between her brows, sharing real estate with a scar down 2/3 of her face. She’s so unhinged, you wonder which marking she actually consented to. But once Spike shows the least bit of reticence to assimilate to the group’s dark practices, Ink uncharacteristically takes pity on him when there’s no motivating incident for her to do so then (beyond Spike barfing). There’s nothing internally that we’re shown that would cause her evolutionary change.
Spike’s inactions are even more confounding. His perspective gets lost in the shuffle. His first attempt at fleeing is unsurprisingly botched by a scared pregnant victim of the Jimmys tyranny. But when he’s given opportunities soon thereafter to flee, he doesn’t take them. Later, when the Jimmys come upon Kelson’s ossuary, Spike doesn’t let on he’s been there and encountered Kelson before, like any human being would. That recognition comes later from Kelson – and only when it’s convenient for this to occur.
When and where the screeching, scrambling horde of infected show up is completely contrived. Basically, it’s whenever there’s not been a jump scare in a while. When the three foragers are in the forest, away from their fenced-off farmhouse compound, their surprise run-in with the fast-moving feral is to satisfy audience demands to see someone healthy be turned. Why the story switches POV to them is also confusing, given their tertiary disposability. The attack inside the derelict train car (a location we saw in the previous film) between Samson and a handful of infected only reaffirms what we already know to be true about him. Don’t worry, there’s another gruesome beheading spine-rip, just in case you forgot Samson’s powers. He also eats brain matter out of a victim’s head like a member in this film’s audience eating popcorn out of their themed popcorn bucket.
Where there was depth, nuance and emotional excavation in Boyle’s return back to this disease-ravaged world, there’s far less weight and dimensional space created in DaCosta’s. As they’ve recently announced a 3rd film in the reinvigorated franchise (one this film sequel baits), this 2nd part – and it very much identifies as being a connective device – is no longer concerned with being a coming-of-age journey filled with profound ruminations on grief. Instead, it squeaks by as a serviceable survivalist story with only a passing interest in world-building.
Grade: 3 out 5
28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE opens on January 16.
