28 Years Later

Before this movie started I saw lots of trailers with crawling babies and floating people and limbs bending impossibly, and I wondered if it might be almost Halloween. But it's because 28 Years Later is classified a horror film. But this series of films is much more interesting than just gore, and in fact the bits where they are running away form the zombies are not the best part at all.

In the first film from 2002, 28 Days Later, the virus that causes Rage and zombie-like behaviour is accidentally released, and there were few survivors. As ever, it's the other humans that are the real danger. 28 Weeks Later I haven't seen yet. The third installment is directed by Danny Boyle again, and we are in Northern Scotland on a little village separated from the mainland by a causeway. This is ideal conditions for survival, no access for Zombies and lots of hardy people who like farming and weaving.

After all these years they have a good defensive system and are teaching the children archery. A twelve-year old boy is taken with his Daddy across to the mainland, and there the adventure begins.

It's clear that a lot has happened in the years since the virus was first released, and there are strange things going on. What makes the film really good is the visual suggestions without explanations. And also Ralph Fiennes as a demented doctor who somehow still survives in the wild.

I really enjoyed it. The relationship between the boy and his mother is excellent, and there was a weird but interesting conclusion.   

 

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

When I got into the cinema there was an awful trailer on about a supercomputer called "The Entity" that had lots of shiny blue lights and was taking over the world. Then I realised I'd arrive late and this was the Mission Impossible film that had already started. AI baddies are rubbish, and I hope they don't appear in any other films. It was good in The Terminator though.

Once Ethan Hunt appears on screen he gets a message from the president. She spends a long time recapping his exploits from previous films, which make you wish you were watching one of those films instead. Then she takes time to mention that he never follows the rules but has never let her down yet. Finally she tells him that the fate of humanity is in his hands. This theme is mentioned very often, that Ethan is gambling with the fate of the human race. There's also a lot of chat about decompression.

There are no fewer than four magic items to collect: a key made of two parts, a box in a submarine, a pen-drive that fits in the box that Luther made, and another pen-drive that Luther also made. The plot is not a good one. The motivation for the AI villain is not clear, nor why there is a giant clock counting down in US Headquarters. The bad guy from a previous jaunt, Gabriel, wants to take over The Identity, which initially requires him to keep Cruise alive. But then he seems to forget about that and tries to kill Cruise. 

Ethan's team consists of previous agents, the best of which surprisingly is Simon Pegg. Some of the actions scenes that run in parallel are quite good, and my favourite scenes were in the Arctic.

Cruise is a bit cheeky sometimes but fairly lifeless. He runs a lot (too much?) and spends a lot of the film in his pants. For me, that doesn't save this from being a very poor addition to the series.