Horror
28 Years Later (15)
Review: In the 23 years since Cillian Murphy’s revived coma patient wandered through an eerily deserted London in 28 Days Later, zombified predators have infected popular culture to the point of weary saturation. Eleven long seasons of The Walking Dead plus six spin-off TV series and counting, Shaun Of The Dead, two Zombielands, half a dozen Resident Evil film sequels, The Last Of Us video games and small screen adaptations, World War Z, Train To Busan,… the bloodletting never ends. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland reunite for a sporadically grisly third chapter of the horror franchise, which arrives late to the gore-laden party and struggles to justify its belated RSVP.
Toothless and bloodless for extended periods, 28 Years Later is bookended by unfortunate sequences devoted to the same peripheral character, who will evidently play a larger role in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,here already in production with Nia DaCosta at the helm. The unevenly paced rites-of-passage drama that provides Garland’s script with its episodic structure has undoubtedly high points, particularly a protracted interlude with Ralph Fiennes’s survivalist GP that beautifully details the compassion and understanding that can bloom when all hope seems lost. Fourteen-year-old newcomer Alfie Williams confidently shoulders the weight of emotionally heavy scenes and he snaffles the biggest laugh at the expense of Young Royals star Edvin Ryding in a meaty supporting role that provides a fleeting reminder of vacuous consumerist life outside the quarantine zone.
Almost three decades have passed since the Rage Virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory and infected the UK. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), wife Isla (Jodie Comer) and their 12-year-old son Spike (Williams) live on Holy Island off the north east coast of England. The insular community is connected to the mainland by a heavily-defended causeway, which can only be accessed at low tide.
Spike prepares for his first hunting expedition on the mainland with his father. The pair have four hours until high tide, plenty of time to practise killing the infected with a skilfully placed arrow through the heart or brain. Alas, Spike becomes embroiled in a gruelling battle for survival far from home that requires him to place his trust in the hands of a deranged medic (Fiennes), a Swedish soldier (Ryding) and a charismatic cult leader (Jack O’Connell).
28 Years Later boasts hordes of naked infected predators chasing after human prey and more than one freshly torn head with a spine cord but skin-prickling scares are disappointing moderate. One death sequence is blatantly telegraphed to the point that the character stands motionless for an extended period by a convenient opening, awaiting their grim fate. Tender scenes without a zombie in sight are the most compelling. Undead or alive.
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Animation
Elio (PG)
Review: I call it the Pixar Pluck. That moment in one of the Oscar-winning animation studio’s films when direction, screenwriting, musical score and jaw-dropping visuals secretly gang up on your heartstrings in the darkness of the cinema. A wave of glassy-eyed emotion crests and, despite your best efforts to blink back that saltwater, trickles become torrents and stifled sobs become unstoppable judders of mournful recognition or joy.
The opening six minutes of Up are one almighty Pixar Pluck; so too the moment when Wall-E relinquishes his personality and memories of Eve; Sulley bids farewell to Boo in Monsters, Inc; Bing Bong makes his beautiful sacrifice in Inside Out; and Miguel serenades his grandmother in Coco. Elio engineers its Pixar Plucks with aplomb. A fantastical adventure co-directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina elegantly navigates the grief, isolation and loneliness of an 11-year-old boy to conjure galaxies of wit and wonder.
If you want to find your place in the universe, don’t be afraid to look to the stars and shoot for the moon. Pixar’s latest heartfelt delight does just that, cherishing uniqueness and self-expression in the face of bullying conformity with the help of lovable aliens of every eye-popping shape and size. At the centre of this intergalactic odyssey is Elio Solis (voiced by Yonas Kibreab). Orphaned at a young age, Elio is raised by his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldana), who has shelved her dreams of becoming an astronaut to care for her nephew and work at Montez Air Force Base as an orbital analyst monitoring space debris.
A multimedia exhibition dedicated to the Voyager space probe ignites Elio’s fascination with the cosmos and the tyke becomes convinced that visitors from another world will abduct him. “Your life isn’t up there Elio, it’s down here,” pleads Olga. The youngster’s outlandish wish comes true and Elio is transported to the Communiverse where intelligent life congregates to share knowledge and ideas. As Earth’s self-anointed leader, Elio faces the ultimate test of courage and diplomacy to impress mind-reading Ambassador Questa (Jameela Jamil) when he is elected to defuse an intergalactic crisis involving Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett). The tyrant’s slug-like young son Glordon (Remy Edgerly) could be the key to defusing the stand-off.
Elio is a heartwarming coming-of-age story about those invisible tethers between family and friends, which sustain through good times and bad and remind us that we are not alone. The script slingshots at breathless speed between comedy, sci-fi and action, augmented by Rob Simonsen’s elegiac score and stunningly detailed visuals that continue to push the boundaries of computer animation as a storytelling medium. Kibreab’s exuberant and achingly vulnerable vocal performance facilitates many of the Pixar Plucks, spread generously throughout the 98-minute running time. First contact demands excited second and third viewings.
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