"28 Years Later: The Bone Temple" 4K Review

 I've been unimpressed by the 28 Days/Weeks/Years Later series. 2002's 28 Days Later (no written review, but 4/10, Skip it score) is overrated and 2007's 28 Weeks Later (6/10, Catch on cable/streaming), while being comparatively better is unmemorable. Last year's 28 Years Later was a too little, too late franchise relaunch (5/10, Skip it) which ended on scene clearly setting up a sequel that I didn't know had already been made, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple which picks up immediately after the end of its predecessor.

We find young Spike (Alfie Williams) having to fight to the death to be allowed to join the weird gang that had saved him, the Jimmys - who are styled after the notorious child molester/BBC presenter Jimmy Saville. (John Lydon got banned off the Beeb for alluding to Saville's activities which they clearly covered up.) Wearing track suits and blonde wigs, they're led by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell), who calls them Fingers of a hand dedicated to serving "Old Nick" aka Satan. Spike manages to survive his initiation, while the Jimmy who challenged to fight Spike doesn't. Womp womp. They proceed to go off sadistically torturing and killing survivors they cross paths with.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), proprietor of the massive ossuary fortress of bones - a "bone temple" so to speak - is hanging out with his Alpha zombie friend, Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry, who's a 6'9" former MMA fighter sporting a prosthetic shvantz), whom he can tranquilize instantly with darts and theorizes that perhaps the infected can be treated or cured.

Of course, eventually the Jimmys find Kelson's place and the top Jimmy pays him a visit to see if he's Old Nick (since he's observed with the Alpha "demon") and to make a deal where he can reconsolidate control over his Teletubbie followers after some setbacks.

Director Nia DaCosta, last seen flying the biggest Marvel flop, The Marvels, into the ground bounces back somewhat with a fairly stylish take on the material which eschews the hyperactive visuals of Danny Boyle (who directed the first and third films of the series), but she's held back by a threadbare script by series scribe Alex Garland. There simply isn't enough story here to justify a full movie.

It feels like 30-40 minutes worth of plot lopped of the end of 28 Years Later and that was padded out to 115 minutes and this was really drawn out to make 109 more minutes. A tightly-edited 150-180 minute version would've been so much better because The Bone Temple doesn't stand on its own; if you didn't see the first half you will have zero idea what the actual heck is going on, not that for all it's run time they really do much with it character-wise.

There are a couple of moments which stand out like Kelson's fandom of Duran Duran and big closing Iron Maiden number and the tantalizing glimpse of how the infection could be eradicated before it is lost to events and fans of the original will like the coda which clearly hopes to set up a fifth installment, but overall the series continues to be mediocre, weighed down by Garland's scripts. The guy isn't a hack, per se, but has a maddening inability to get his stories over the finish line intact.

The 4K Dolby Vision presentation starts off promisingly with very bold colors and lighting, but then settles down into more naturalistic tableaus which don't stress the format very much, but the rich colors are solid throughout.

Score: 4/10. Skip it unless you need to see how 28 Years Later wraps up.

"Mercy" 4K Review

Mercy is one of those direct-to-streaming type movies which apparently got a brief theatrical run before it eventually drops onto Amazon Prime to be rapidly forgotten. A mashup of Minority Report and the so-hot buzzword AI, it's a modestly effective sci-fi thriller until you stop and think of all the gaping plot, logic, ethical, and Constitutional holes it has to leap over.

Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy)stars as LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective Chris Raven who is having a very bad day in 2029. He wakes up strapped in a chair in LA's Mercy Capital Court, a modified Judge Dredd system set up due to LA's rampant crime problems which has made areas no-go "red zones." Defendants have 90 minutes to convince an AI judge - here it's Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson, Silo) - there is enough doubt about their guilt to avoid immediate execution by sonic blast to the head. (Is lethal injection not a thing in the future? Or doing it elsewhere?) Raven is accused of having murdered his wife while drunk, which is all news to him initially. The fact he was a strong proponent of the Mercy court, having put its first defendant (victim?) in the chair a couple years previously is an additional layer of irony.

Mercy defendants are given access to all the evidence which looks damning on the surface, but once he comes to grips with his predicament he utilizes his detective skills and with the assistance of his partner, Jaq (Kali Reis, True Detective: Night Country), on the outside, races the clock to figure out who could've done it instead. Numerous red herrings and hijinks ensue.

I could go on at length about all the preposterous things in Mercy starting with the title: Who is getting this mercy? The defendants who are presumed guilty and better be able to convince the AI Judge they aren't? Raven is the 19th case in the chair, but how many of the 18 before him were deductive wizards able to sift through the evidence to save themselves?

What about the whole Constitutional aspect where defendants are entitled to a trial by jury? I presume the AI is meant to be impartial and dispassionate (more on this in a moment) to remove the tendency of liberal judges to free brutal criminals because they have the proper Designated Victim Group traits, but Mercy isn't even pretending to operate on an intellectual plane. 

Then there's the aspect of Raven having access to the municipal cloud which seems to have all the calls, texts, photos, videos, etc. of everyone's cell phones, doorbell cameras, etc. and he can rummage through them for clues. So, privacy went out the window? In wildly pro-criminal Los Angeles? Well, this is a science fiction movie, but come on.

The trial room is a big space with plenty of room for holographic GUI stuff to float in the air and the floor has windows looking down into....something, but why? This all could've been done in a small room or even VR goggles. There are flying motorcycles to beat the traffic, but ground cars seem to have the same tech as the CTU SUVs on 24 had which allowed Jack Bauer to get across LA in 15 minutes.

The AI also behaves situationally, sometimes unlocking access to info because it's needed, not that he has a right to it. At the end, it asks a question which completely moots the whole dispassionate aspect these robo-judges are supposed to provide. While flawed, Minority Report at least had its premise sorted out - Pre-Crime was intended to save lives by nabbing murderers before they killed someone. Mercy's world is where rapid trials and executions are happening with no human supervision or witnesses or even failsafes. Also, the threshold for doubt for execution is 92%, but it's never stated that frees the defendant. Are they acquitted and free to go or what?

It's to the credit of director Timur Bekmambetov (best known for Wanted) that he proceeds at such a breathless pace that the viewer doesn't really have time to ponder the myriad problems with Marco van Belle's script. Even as the dumb piles up, we're still on board and it's only when it's over the stupid washes over you.

Pratt is adequate to the role, but Ferguson is poorly directed by the schizoid script which never decides whether Maddox is Data or Cortana. (IYKYK)  

The 4K presentation is nothing particularly special, so if you don't have a snazzy TV, you won't miss much.

If Mercy pops up on your streaming thing and you're down for some mindless thrills, it's not the worst movie you can watch, but perhaps you should watch something else. (How's that for faint praise?)

Score: 5/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.

"Primate" Review

January is traditionally a dumping ground for movies studios have little faith in and horror programmers. Sometimes you get a gem like M3GAN, more more often it's schlock like Primate which has a lean premise undercut by cheap execution.

Oddly-named Johnny Sequoyah stars as Lucy Pinborough, a young woman returning to her family's home in Hawaii after an indeterminate lengthy time away. She's accompanied by her bestie, Kate (Victoria Wyant), and Hannah (Jessica Alexander), a frenemy of Lucy's who Kate invited along for some reason.

The family home is a gorgeous cliffside spread where live her deaf author father, Adam (Troy Kotsur), younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter), and Ben (Miguel Torres Umba), a chimpanzee that her late linguist mother had trained to communicate with an electronic pad. Unfortunately, Ben has contracted rabies and escaped his enclosure while Adam is away on a book signing. He bites Erin, and the group retreat to the pool because chimps can't swim. But even in the pool, they're not entirely safe and with Erin's injuries, they're going to have to find away up to the house where their phones are charging.

The scenario is novel in that the pool is accessible only via a spiral staircase so they can't see if Ben is lurking on the deck level or in the house and the infinity pool construction overlooks a sheer cliff face so they can't escape that way. But pretty much every kill is predictable as well as who will survive due to plot armor.

There are two major issues which sink Primate from the general "not great, but fun enough" review consensus it enjoys. First, Ben's rabies is graphically illustrated in the cold open meaning we know he's a problem and have to wade through a first act of family drama and teen partying before the Bad Monkey Hour begins as it jumps back 36 hours to show Lucy and friends boarding the plane and to set up a couple of party bros who will show up later to die. (SPOILER ALERT!)

Even more problematic is the execution of Ben with a performer in a monkey costume and an animatronic head. We've had four Planet of the Apes movies in the past 15 years, each pushing the realism of CGI-enhanced performance capture forward with even greater realism, so to present something where Ben looks more primitive than the makeup in the 1968 original is fatally foolhardy. They try to hide Ben with dark lighting, various obstructions between him and the camera, even just putting him way out of focus in the background of a poorly composed shot, indicating they knew it wasn't working out. As mediocre as Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes was, the makeup was impeachable.

Granted, they didn't have the budget for Weta Digital to create Ben, but with a reported $21-24M budget, there's not only no excuse for such poor quality of THE key character execution, but it raises the question of WHAT they spent that much money on? Reportedly filmed on London soundstages, it's basically the pool and house sets. I don't know anyone in the cast but Kotsur - if there's a deaf guy in a movie these days, he's the one, same as Peter Dinklage gets all the short guy parts - and one of the girls is currently on Ryan Murphy's current weird series, The Beauty, so it's not like they paid Big Star salaries.

While a couple of the kills are respectably gnarly, the overall movie simply isn't worth the brief 90-minute runtime.

Score: 3/10. Skip it.

"Aliens Expanded" Review

 James Cameron's 1986 magnum opus Aliens was his announcement to the universe that The Terminator wasn't a fluke and he was going to be a cinematic force to be reckoned with. I remember seeing it at the show then telling my then-girlfriend that "It was like being shoved through a screen door...without the door breaking." (Even as a young lad I had a way with words. May not have been a good way, but it was a way.)

Back in the good old days of the Aughts when DVDs came with massive special features packages, the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy box set of the (then) four Alien movies included Superior Firepower: Making Aliens, a 190-minute long documentary by Charles de Lauzirika which combined behind-the-scenes footage shot during the filming with interviews taped about 17 years later with the participants. It's been ages since I watched it (probably in 2003 when I got the set), but de Lauzirika is renowned for his production documentaries including Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner which accompanied Blade Runner: The Final Cut and I recall it was good (I've started rewatching it) and comprehensive.

But director Ian Nathan felt there was more to be told so, backed by a massive crowdfunding campaign, he has made 2024's Aliens Expanded, clocking in at a daunting 4 hours, 42 minutes (hough the actual content is 4h 15m and the rest a credits roll of the legions of donors with brief testimonials that I'm guessing higher tier donations purchased) and features the participation of pretty much the entire living cast and key filmmakers including Cameron, producer Gale Ann Hurd, various production personnel, as well as numerous superfans, novelists, scientists, and pop culture experts to comment on the legacy of Aliens after nearly four decades. (Also participating is Charles de Lauzirika, upping the Inception quotient!)

If you're already a superfan of the film, there will be a lot of familiar material like how Hicks was originally played by James Remar until early in production he made the poor life choice of buying a speedball (cocaine & heroin) from an undercover cop, necessitating Hurd to scramble to get Remar deported rather than end up in slam for years. But there are a lot of new details like Cameron's dustup with the tea cart lady and tidbits from the cast like how the initials on the Colonial Marines' monitors were the actors first initial (e.g. Vasquez is "Vasquez J" for actress Jeanette Goldstein).

While the running time seems excessive, it's actually quite manageable by a chapter structure where the movie is gone through sequentially with sidebars "transmissions" for related subjects like the connection to Joseph Campbell (both Alien's Nostromo and Aliens' Sulaco came from Campbell books) and a nice tribute to Bill Paxton whose Hudson had so many quotable lines. ("Game over, man! Game over!") I watched a few chapters per session, nibbling through it over a couple of weeks.

It's a testament to Aliens Expanded's editing and focus that there's nothing that I thought was too extraneous or unnecessary. Having every bit player whose names you probably didn't even remember sounding off could've been a drag, but their comments and insights tie together nicely. And with nearly 40 years of the film's legacy to assay, the perspectives of what the movie meant beyond its own story are interesting.

And I'd really like to commend Nathan for heading off one of my biggest pet peeves about most documentaries by putting up title cards for every person EVERY time they are shown. Most documentaries introduce speakers once and then the viewer has to remember who they are. With over three dozen cast members, podcasters, commentators, etc. participating it could've been confusing as to who that non-cast member person is, but Nathan just puts up a friendly reminder every. Single. Time. Huzzah! 

In length and comprehensiveness, Aliens Expanded reminded me of another four-plus hour documentary, RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop, which also interviewed everyone - and I mean EVERYONE down to the woman being assaulted whom RoboCop shoots the guy's crotch through her skirt and the bimbos at Bob Morton's house that Boddicker dismisses ("Bitches, leave.") - including director Paul Verhoeven and stars Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, etc. about that seminal cult classic's production. I didn't review it because they broke it up into four hourish-long episodes, but it's definitely worth watching for fans of RoboCop just as Aliens Expanded joins Superior Firepower to form a tag-team 7-1/2 hour making-of fest.

Score: 9/10. Catch it on cable/streaming. (Viewed on AMC+)

I don't know why Sigourney Weaver isn't shown in the trailer, but she's in the movie plenty. Odd.

"The Housemaid" Review

Depending on whether you want to love or hate Paul Feig, he's either the creator of the cult fave TV series Freaks & Geeks (which launched the careers of Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Busy Phillips and more) or the director of the divisive, fanbaiting disaster Ghostbusters: Answer The Call (more accurately Lady Ghostbusters). But for the most part he has specialized in female-fronted comedies like Bridesmaids, The Heat and a trash favorite of ours, A Simple Favor (and it's less great sequel, Another Simple Favor).

So, the news that he was making a movie of one of those trashy novels popular with wine moms starring current vavoom It Girl Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, Anyone But You) and former curvy light comedy performer (Mean Girls, Mamma Mia) turned ingenue (In Time, Chloe) now Oscar-nominated (Mank) and Golden Globe-winning (The Dropout) Amanda Seyfried, hopes were high for another kicky, kinky, trash-camp funfest like A Simple Favor. While it doesn't hit those heights, it's because it's another beast entirely.

Sweeney stars as Millie Calloway, a young woman on parole for a crime not immediately explained, but it'd been ten years off the job market for her. She's living in her car and desperate for employment to satisfy her parole officer when she interviews with Nina Winchester (Seyfried), a wealthy Long Island woman with a husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar, Drop), and daughter, Cece (Indiana Elle). It's a gorgeous showplace mansion home complete with creepy Italian groundskeeper, Enzo (Michele Morrone, Another Simple Favor) and a concerning attic bedroom for Millie as it's a live-in position, checking off the box for her parole.

She gets the job, but when she returns the next day to begin work, the previously spotless, Architectural Digest-worthy home is trashed, with dishes in the sink, clothes all over, etc. Nina is working on a PTA speech and the next day accuses Millie of having stolen it. Millie overhears other PTA mothers whispering about her and another nanny at Cece's ballet class has more tidbits on the backstory of the Winchester family.

The erratic behavior culminates in Nina asking Millie to get theater tickets and a hotel suite for her and Andrew the following weekend, but when they arrive, freaks out and demands Millie explain why she'd spend all that money when she knew they were taking the kid to arts camp that weekend and the spending would come out of her pay, which Millie can't afford. Andrew reassures her that she won't have to pay, but the situation is growing untenable.

When Nina decides to take Cece herself, Millie suggests Andrew should go to the show and he counters with why don't you come with me and wear the nice clothes Nina gifted you? To the shock of no one the trip to the city for dinner and a show and separate rooms at the hotel results in a longer trip to Poundtown. And to even less surprise, Nina knows about it, accuses Millie of stealing the clothes and her car and threatens to have her sent back to prison.

It's at this point the plot pulls a Gone Girl switcheroo and changes POV to recast everything we've seen and what it meant. While the weirdness of certain behaviors like Andrew's obsession with Nina's roots (as in hair, not her being descended from slaves) were waving red flags, what transpires after the switch is sometimes hard to believe like why would you want to disfigure someone you planned on keeping around?

Fortunately, Feig keeps the tonal train on the track though the overall running time could've been trimmed 10-20 minutes. Sweeney is good (exceptional of we're grading on cleavage), but the true star of the show is Seyfried as her performance has to capture a lot of different personas, though the way the script presents things has some large plot holes she has to leap over. And the way they set up an obvious sequel - which has already been greenlit as the film grossed over $350M globally on a $35M budget - raises questions of what the plot will be.

While The Housemaid isn't quite the top shelf trash it aspires to be, it's still respectable enough trash to merit a watch, preferably while heckling at home with a wingman.

Score: 7/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.