I'll tell you what, considering there was so much hype around this film- it bored me. Even Jamie, the seasoned apocalyptic moviegoer was bored. The only saving grace was Cillian Murphy and I'm guessing that they put him in to save what was otherwise a boring instalment to the 28 days franchise. All this film did was show us where Spike was, showed us that Kelson could cure the infected and then removed any hope for the future, and brought the downfall of Jimmy Crystal.
Bone Temple followed very loosely the two main characters we were introduced to in the last movie, Spike and Dr Kelson. We also get reintroduced to Jimmy who we saw as a lad at the start of the last film and then as a nutter at the end, as well as a familiar face with Jim from the original film. We follow Spike as a background character as he gets sucked into the world of Jimmy. We then dip over to Dr Kelson who is coping with chronic loneliness to the point he befriends Samson and by accident cures him, and then the two reunite. We then follow Spike in a round about term as he stumbles across the original Jim and then the film ends.
The movie felt like it was an advertisement for Go-pros and iPhones. It's no secret that they filmed using the latest phones but the problem is that in some scenes it really shows. I'm aware the point is to disorientate the viewer when we switch to seeing Samson up close and running around like he's Frances Bourgeois (big love to my fellow train adventurer there), but it just ruins the flow for me as the style of shot is so massively different to the cinematics of the other scenes. If it all felt like it was POV filming like the Blair Witch Project and had the feel of the original 28 Days Later movie then I wouldnt mind, but it just spoilt it.
I dont think it helped that the whole film just seemed like it was carried by nudity. We didn't need to see Ralph Fiennes in the nude, I've seen more of that man than I ever needed to and its imprinted in my mind like that time I saw Keith Allen nude in Shallow Grave. It scars you despite being a perfectly natural thing. There's a level of intimacy that I don't feel I was privileged to but has been forced upon me needlessly. But Samson is running around in the buff to the point it is a little distracting and uncomfortable especially when you are sharing the screen with a bunch of teenage boys who you can hear laughing every time he comes on screen, plus the infected who are running around with bits flying about by both genders. That bit I get, but the more human of the characters doing it I do not.
The movie verged on insanity, and in context of the series I completely get it. We're in a shit show of a world where almost everyone is dead, and then you have these tossers running around and killing people because they think their leader is the son of Satan because he saw his Vicar dad get infected and lead a bunch of zombies. I just didn't see a point in having a stand alone movie showing how Spike ended up with the original Jim, when neither of them were really the focal point of the film. Kelson and Jimmy were.
It felt like a showcase for how this environment had inspired mental illness in the good and the bad. For Kelson who had lost everything and everyone, he sought peace and his old life and so dipped into 80s music and narcotics where he could, effectively while he waited for death. He pushed quiet boundaries with Samson thinking he'd die at any moment but being accepting of that. He knew death was near and there was no real chance of outliving the virus. He ended up dancing and singing just to combat loneliness.
Jimmy on the other hand, tipped the whole other end of the scale. He wasn't quiet and harmless, he converted everyone he came across into deranged killers just to keep control. His trauma had triggered something in him, he heard voices in his head which seems like he made it up to be honest based on what else we see. Jimmy becomes a psycho and thinks he will outlive the virus as he's ended up believing his own lives. I think this is my only decent take away from the film, otherwise I was antsy and bored until Jim came on screen and we became normal again.
I'd wanted to describe this movie as chaos but it wasn't, it was controlled idiotic events designed to shock and disorientate us so we didn't know what was coming. But I'd guessed Jimmy would meet his end, just like I guessed what happened to Kelson. I knew the trailers showing him as an insane fire loving man was misleading, it seemed vastly out of character for him. I think they'd gone so far out of the way to make the trailers misleading to get bums on seats that they'd made a rod for their own backs as they ended up too far into the mundane. I must admit though, the Metallica scene was cool.
Overall I'm awarding 28Years Later: Bone Temple a 6/10. I wouldn't watch it again as it was long and I hated forcing myself to concentrate on a film which effectively meant nothing in the grand scheme of that cinematic world. It was a movie for the sake of having another movie, it was a bridge for the next chapter and to be honest I think it would have done better by being cut down and released as a series of shorts to link to the next movie. Maybe even as a limited series like Star Wars does to expand their universe and bridge gaps between bigger events. It just felt like a bizarre choice to have this as a film as the point was to get Spike to Jimmy and that the infected could be cured, but the former happened in the last 5 minutes and we aren't sure its a success yet and the latter was pointless as the knowledge can go no further now. I wouldn't say I hated this movie, I don't even dislike it, I just sort of shrug at it now with indifference.
We watched Rental Family straight afterward and it provided the peace I needed after such a hectic borefest. Join me nexxt Saturday for my review on that!
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