3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): 28 Years Later

2025, Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) -- download

And even before I get my first paragraph into the stub post, the trailer for the follow-up movie, a sort of Pt 2 to this one, has arrived. I did not know they were going to do that. At least it lifts us from expectations of '28 Decades Later'.

My rewatch at the beginning of the year, and Kent's post about this movie.

I'm feeling a recappy coming on...

When last we left our spreading red map of an infographic, the Rage Virus, having jumped the Chunnel to the mainland, was taking over the world and.... record scritch... nope, the rest of the world beat it back. Like the Americans in the last movie, the rest of the world has survived, and unlike the Americans in the last movie, nobody came to the assistance of the UK, after the failed attempt at resettlement. They just quarantined the whole goddamn nation and let them die, infected and survivors alike.

A whole generation has past.

On the island of Lindisfarne, in northern England, near the Scottish border, on the east coast, a settlement of survivors ekes out a meagre life. The island is connected to the mainland by a tidal causeway providing protection against the mindless infected. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bullet Train) is taking Spike (Alfie Williams, A New Breed of Criminal), his 12 year old son to the mainland for his manhood ritual. Spike is younger than normal for this event, but Jamie is a bit of a overinflated ego on the whole matter. The idea is that if you go to the mainland, and don't come back in the alloted time, nobody is allowed to go find you. You died or got infected; that's it, end of story. Isla (Jodie Comer, The End We Start From), Spike's mother, spends her day in bed, suffering an unknown malady, likely neurological in nature, as she has lucid moments followed by ranting outbursts. Spike loves his mum; Jamie seems... burdened.

This is a hunting trip, but not for food. Spike is learning how to kill infected, and learn a bit about the past. They pass through the deforested land where the island cuts its wood, they see massively repopulated herds of deer, and they see the evolution of the infected. Unlike the second movie, where all died off, a new ecosystem seems to have formed, likely built on a slow depopulation cycle of survivors, infected and non-infected alike. They run into the obesely fat "slow-lows" who belly-crawl across the forest floor eating every living thing they come across: bugs, worms, etc. Their constant eating has made them... something else. Elsewhere in some sort of pack mentality, an "alpha" has risen, a massively muscled, bigger & less vulnerable to damage example. But Jamie and Spike are not there to investigate, but to ... run. Once they get an Alpha on their tail, the only thing to do is hide or flee. And flee back to the island they do, finally killing the Alpha on the causeway. Spike has survived his first trip, barely, and with the guilt of being utterly terrified almost every moment of it.

But Spike did learn one thing from his father while over there -- that there is a doctor, a man who survived all these years, a man with mainland medical knowledge. Spike, whose awareness of doctors and medicine is entirely mythical, thinks the man can help his mother, and so formulates a plan. He escapes with her and some meagre supplies, back to the mainland, to find this doctor and save his mother from whatever ails her. Jamie is not allowed to chase after.

What Spike finds first is the lone survivor of a capsized Swedish patrol boat. They were beset by an Alpha and despite superior weaponry & training all but one died horribly. This Alpha likes to pull people's heads off, along with a bit of spinal column -- his trophies. From this cocky mainlander Spike hears, but learns little, of a world of cell phones, and jobs, and videos, and parties and take-out food. The rest of the world has continued after the rage plague, carrying naught for the plight of the UK. 

They do find Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, The Menu), but not before losing the Swede, and gaining... a baby, from an infected mother, but one who bore an apparently uninfected child. Dr. Kelson has lived on solitude, on his own little island, one decorated with effigies to the dead -- massive towers of boiled, beach skulls & bones. In his own more than a little mad way he remembers the old world and all those who lost their lives. His quick examination of Isla tells him she has cancer, and doesn't likely have long left to live. To him, memories of the lost are as important as the living themselves, but really, that's all he has. 

Kelson leads Isla to an early and painless death. A new life has replaced her soon to end one. Spike climbs one of Kelson's towers to lovingly place his mother's skull upon the altar of memory. Instead of peace, they are attacked by the Alpha who has been dogging their trail. Spike does fight him off, saving Kelson, and leaves with the new baby. He leaves her, now named Isla for his mother, at the gate, with a note to his father, before returning to the mainland. Spike's journey is not over; he has yet to find meaning in his fruitless quest to save his mother, in continued existence, despite bringing new life to his island.

The movie comes to a close with Spike fleeing a pack of infected, only to be saved by a very very odd bunch of survivors. Dressed in track suits, bouncing about and cackling like baboons, these are the Jimmy's, surviving youth who follow a now grown young boy from the movie's preamble (no, I did not recap that). They invite Spike to join.

What the what? This almost-coda, doesn't give us any closure to this movie without much resolution. Like Spike, we are left wondering what was the point of it all, why introduce all this post-apocalypse world, why give us hints of memories of the past, but... leave it all hanging. The first two movies, more the first, successfully had endings, survivors getting away. Spike did get away, but the movie not being all about survival hinted that there should be more.

Oh, there was. In another movie.

This is an odd little/big movie. Its the most po-ap of the trilogy, the most packed with (new) world building, which always catches my eye. It is about survival, but its not. It has hints of beauty, but is mostly horror. The design of the movie, shot all with unsophisticated cameras, like iPhones and GoPro's and drones, is fascinating, but not sure it lent a whole lot to the experience. I liked what I got, but until I got that surprising exposure to the next movie I was not sure of the why of it all. Now, I am more than a little intrigued.