Quick takes on All of You and other films

Unlike many (just about everyone I know) I did not like 28 Days Later. I even rewatched it recently to see if my mind had changed, and it had not. Too much shaky cam for me (I get the reason why, for such a low budget film, but it was so bad that I couldn’t tell what was going on) and the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, was just as bad for my tastes. But this years-long-gestating sequel came with great promise, as it returned the original director (the great Danny Boyle) and writer (Alex Garland, who has gone on to great things since 28 Days, helming some really great films like Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, and Civil War, all of which you can find reviewed in my history). So getting to it: 28 Years Later finally broke the curse, and delivered a movie I really enjoyed. It has been a generation since the “rage virus” turned most of the UK into a zombie zone, and nearly the entirety of the country has been quarantined from the rest of the world. A small community survives on a tiny island off the coast, only accessible by a land bridge during low tide, and its inhabitants have, if not thrived, at least are doing well enough. A coming-of-age tradition sees its young men sent out as teenagers to kill any zombies encroaching near to their island, and the newest young man is 12-year-old Spike. He and his father Jamie go to the mainland one day where Spike is able to kill a couple of the slow-moving monsters, but when they are attacked by some of the fast moving zombies, who can full-on sprint at you, Spike freezes in fear and the father and son barely make it back alive. Despite this fear, Spike has heard tale of a doctor living in the quarantined zone, and thinks that he can help his (Spike’s) mother, who lies abed with some debilitating illness. Spike absconds with his mom and seeks the doctor, traversing through overrun lands where anything can kill you. Great, tense film from the very beginning, almost to the point that it is exhausting to watch because you can never catch a breath. The ending was fairly divisive because it shifts tonally very suddenly, setting up a sequel that will soon hit, but I didn’t have a problem with it, and in fact, kind of liked it the more I think about it. Bring on the next film in the series! ★★★★

The Thursday Murder Club seemed like a “safe” movie for a stay-in movie night with the wife, featuring a strong cast (Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley) and a ho-hum murder mystery at an old folks home. And safe is what I got. The eponymous club meets weekly to look at cold cases and drink tea, but when a real murder happens, they take it upon themselves to do what the cops can’t. The owner of their retirement center is killed, and the new controlling owner is wanting to kick everyone out and turn the place into upscale apartments. Before that can happen, our plucky geriatric sleuths need to get to the bottom of the murder. Nothing too surprising here, and it’s a pleasant enough film, even if it definitely more geared for the older crowd (lots of corny jokes and whatnot), but it is intriguing enough to keep your attention. ★★½

Materialists is the followup from director Celine Song (bonus trivia: I learned she took her Western name from Jacques Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating); her debut film Past Lives was a darling of the critics, even if I wasn’t as high on it as some. In Materialists, Dakota Johnson plays Lucy Mason, a matchmaker in New York who works to bring love to others, even if she can’t find it for herself. She spends her days interviewing would-be customers about their perfect matches, who too often care more for how tall their mate would be or how much they make. Lucy is really no different. She was once in love with (perhaps) her soulmate in John Finch (Chris Evans, a Captan America sighting!) but she broke it off with him over money. He was (and continues) pursuing his dream of acting but as such, is living dirt poor, and Lucy “doesn’t want to worry about spending $25 at a restaurant.” At least she admits to herself what she wants. She might just find her perfect match in Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal), a wealthy investor with a $12 million apartment, and the two hit it off. But when one of Lucy’s clients is assaulted, by a match that Lucy had set up, she begins to ask herself serious questions about what she really wants, and if “settling for money alone” is really what will make her happy. It’s a charming film, exploring the same kind of ideas of fate and love-conquers-all themes that the director tackled in her first film. ★★★

The Naked Gun is a soft sequel of the classic Leslie Nielsen film trilogy from the 80s/90s, and has the exact same amount of ridiculous laughs as its predecessors. In case you’ve forgotten how ridiculous, it isn’t 3 minutes into the film before bank robbers pull off a heist with the goal of stealing a small electronic device labeled “plot device,” while cop Frank Drebin Jr (Liam Neeson, as Nielsen’s too-old son (*wink*) barrels in, chewing off guns, knocking down shooters as bowling pins, etc. That stolen device has a nefarious purpose, and as Frank and his partner Ed (Paul Walter Hauser) try to get to the bottom of the case, a femme fatale (Pamela Anderson) will either help or stand in their way before the end. The visual humor comes at you a mile a minute, and while I usually don’t do comedies, this one is so dumb that it is funny. Like, really funny. I laughed (out lout, to my wife’s chagrin) from beginning to end. Makes me want to go back and re-watch the originals after all this time, as I was a kid when they came out. ★★★★

All of You is a bittersweet romantic film starring (and written by) Brett Goldstein, with co-lead (and the always charming) Imogen Poots. They play best friends Simon and Laura, with the kind of closeness and non-sexual intimacy you can only have with a friend with whom you’ve shared everything for years. However, the viewer immediately gets the impression that Simon wishes it was more, but is unwilling to risk the friendship he has. Taking place in the near-future, in the beginning of the film Simon is driving Laura to Soul Connex, a company that has discovered the guaranteed ability to match people with their soulmates. Laura is excited for the chance to finally find true love, but Simon laughs it off, saying he’d rather find a mate “the old fashioned way.” When Laura’s match comes back, not as Simon but as a stranger named Lukas, Simon is obviously disheartened, but he’s not going to stand in her way. From here, the film starts to jump forward after every scene or two, sometimes a year, sometimes more, as we see the development of Laura’s marriage to Lukas and subsequent birth of a daughter, and what all this means for her friendship with Simon, who continues to (privately) hold on to hope. He dates here and there, relationships that never work out, until eventually, some years down the line, Laura’s father dies. With emotions high, Laura and Simon begin an affair that night, but afterwards, she refuses to leave her husband, whom she still loves (he is her legitimate soulmate after all, and makes her happy), but she continues on with Simon on the side. This can only last so long, as Simon wants more. Beautiful film with superb acting from Poots (as to be expected; how she’s never won a major acting award is beyond me) and spot-on writing from Goldstein, which isn’t surprising if you’re a fan of the heartwarming moments of Ted Lasso; he was originally hired as a writer on that show before taking on the role of Roy Kent. I absolutely adored this picture. ★★★★★

Jurassic World Rebirth is the latest in the film series (up to 7 now!) and a soft relaunch. The first Jurassic World film (the first one with Chris Pratt, a decade ago now) was pretty good but the subsequent two films got worse and worse. New cast, new setting for Rebirth, but in a good move, they brought back David Koepp, the original writer on the first 2 Jurassic Park films back in the 90s. In this film, set 3 years after the last, climate change has forced all dinosaurs to migrate towards the equator, and all the countries of the world have banned travel there for safety reasons. That’s fine for most of the population of the world, for whom the novelty of seeing dinosaurs has worn off, and no one cares anymore. However, a rich man has a scheme (don’t they always?) to sample the blood from 3 large dinosaurs for a new heart disease treatment, and he hires a crackshot crew including Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali to escort him into the quarantined zone to retrieve his samples. This island hosts the worst of the worst dinosaurs, not just the T-Rex’s and Velociraptors, but also genetically modified and mutated dinosaurs that the company was experimenting with. The team goes in, rescuing a family of boaters who had strayed too close to the unsafe zone, and together they must try to obtain their samples and then survive a day before rescue can arrive. Honestly lots of the same kind of scenes that are in every Jurassic Park film (people hiding behind something while a stealthy dino sniffs them out) but there are enough new-ish exciting moments to make up for it. The movie is long at over 2 hours, and I felt it, but it is better than the last movie in the series, so here’s hoping they are taking the franchise in a better direction. Because I’m sure there will be a film # 8 on this money train. ★★★

• TV series recently watched: Deep Space 9 (season 4), Marvel Zombies (series), Strange New Worlds (season 3), Voyager (season 2), John Adams (series)
• Book currently reading: Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan