I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, a sequel shot at the same time as the original (
28 Years Later, itself a sequel), directed by Nia DaCosta (
Hedda,
Candyman) rather than Danny Boyle. But the story was rarely less than interesting and that helped a lot. Screenwriter Alex Garland has written all the entries in the franchise so far except
28 Weeks Later. That’s good for continuity and he seems to know what he’s doing. Garland also wrote
Ex Machina,
Annihilation, and
Men, which are also interesting and generally worth seeing, especially
Annihilation. The violence here is predictably extreme, with lots of horrible screaming and torture and things you’ll want to look away from. Most of them involve a terrible rampaging gang of teens and a heavy
Apocalypse Now vibe. Ralph Fiennes is back from
28 Years Later as Dr. Ian Kelson, a scientist making the best of the zombie armageddon and also the architect of the so-called bone temple, which he primly calls an ossuary as he calls the zombies “infecteds.” In his spare time Kelson enjoys listening to Duran Duran and Radiohead. He is working with opioids to civilize one of the new type of zombies, super-creatures he calls “alphas,” who are giant and powerful and quite dangerous. There’s a lingering sense in all this that we may be witnessing actual devolution. The terrible rampaging gang of teens is led by Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who calls his various hooligan followers “fingers” and names them all “Jimmy” (or, for a young woman, “Jimmima”) They wear blonde wigs. One is our old friend the young boy Spike (Alfie Williams) from the first movie, an unwilling participant just doing what he has to to survive. This gang is pretty sure Kelson is actually Satan, a view he accommodates and affirms with a somewhat unlikely Iron Maiden interpretive dance set to “The Number of the Beast.” On the whole
The Bone Temple is fairly predictable, including a big spectacle at the finish. But it was better than I expected. The end leaves wide open the option for further sequels. My bet would be on a first season of a TV series, but we’ll have to see how these movies do at the box office. I am as dubious about further sequels as I was about this one coming into it. But I admit
The Bone Temple was entertaining and I have few regrets about seeing it.
