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By Cole Smithey
‘28 Weeks Later’
Movie Trailer
Audiences hoping to experience
similar thrills to director Danny
Boyle’s original virus-infection
shocker “28 Days Later” would
do better to re-watch that flawed
film rather than endure this committee
produced half-hearted follow-up
from newbie writer/director Juan
Carlos Fresnadillo (“Intacto”).
Seven months have past since the
last Rage Virus victim died of
starvation in London. The U.S.
Army controls the empty city’s
quarantined district where adolescent
siblings Tammy (Imogen Poots)
and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton)
are reunited with their father
Don (Robert Carlyle) after his
narrow escape from a marauding
band of diseased zombies that
ostensibly took the life of the
children’s mother Alice (Catherine
McCormack). Nevertheless, of the
500 survivors populating Britain,
Alice endures undetected thanks
to a genetic immunity that may
provide an antibody against the
insidious rage microbe. Enormous
plot holes, indistinct swipes
at social satire and a wayward
emphasis on feeble child characters
contribute to the film’s tedious
clinicism. This isn’t just a bad
movie. It’s a cut-and-paste example
of how movie sequels are predictably
inferior to their ancestors.
There’s a notable lack of urgent
discovery in the beginning minutes
of “28 Weeks Later” in spite of
its thundering musical score of
goth metal. Fresnadillo makes
no attempt at matching the fast-twitch
blast of graphic energy that exploded
from the first film’s opening
sequence where contaminated lab
monkeys broke free of their cages
to wreck unthinkable havoc. Here,
a group of civilians hide quietly
around a dinner table inside a
boarded-up rural farmhouse. Don
and Alice retreat to an upstairs
bedroom when viral automatons
invade the dark crevices of the
house to bite and spew blood on
the uninfected civilians. Don
jumps out of a second story window,
abandoning his wife in the process,
before escaping in a motorboat
whose blades chew at the tainted
flesh of his spastic attackers.
The lead-up seems to promise
an omega man perspective of one
man’s individual attempt to escape
an inevitable doom. Instead, the
plot veers off into a militarized
London overseen by U.S. Army commander
General Stone (Idris Elba) where
Don’s children join their traumatized
father in a refugee compound that
seems more like an internment
camp. Never mind that the children
effortlessly skip out of the U.S.
Army’s secure zone to gather possessions
from their home where they discover
their mother alive, if unwell.
The movie doesn’t care about believability
or cohesion. “You want a sequel
— we’ve got a sequel,” is the
prevailing attitude here.
The most visually arresting
moment comes in the form of an
exceptionally gory climatic scene
that seems lifted from Quentin
Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s
“Grindhouse” where a helicopter
pilot uses his chopper blades
in a literal sense to make minced
meat of an approaching group of
zombies on the ground. The helicopter
tilts at a 125-degree angle before
slicing heads, torsos and limbs
a go-go. It’s an unfortunate parallel
that points out the lesser quality
of “28 Weeks Later” as compared
to “Grindhouse” where at least
there’s an atmosphere of cinematic
pleasure present.
A turning point finally comes
when Army Ranger Sergeant Doyle
(Jeremy Renner) disobeys General
Stone’s order to fire on civilians
after the quarantine is broken.
Doyle leads a small pack of survivors
away from the American soldiers
and zombies who coincidentally
line up on the same side of the
law, or lack thereof. Although,
by this time it doesn’t matter
who the villains are or if there
is any hope for humanity. The
audience is simply being baited
for a third continuation of more
of the same. Judging from this
psychology, humankind really is
staring into an abysmal future.
Enjoy the decline. CV
‘Spider-Man 3’
Movie Trailer
After bucking the pitfalls of
creating a sassy big screen superhero
based on a popular comic book,
and following it up with an even
better sequel, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man
film series has fizzled into a
flagging mix of confused passion
and diluted villainy. Gone is
the bright tempo and unbridled
enthusiasm of the first two movies
that seemed to offer limitless
possibilities for the genre.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire)
appears to have been recently
pulled from a cryogenic freezer
where he spent the past three
years since “Spider-Man 2.” Parker
sits in the same dull college
science classes, lives in the
same one-room fleapit, rides the
same yellow moped and hasn’t managed
to settle into a stable relationship
with his true love Mary Jane Watson
(aka MJ — Kirsten Dunst). Director/co-screenwriter
Raimi dawdles through an uninspired
opening act, wasting crucial Spidey
time to elaborate on MJ’s ill-fated
Broadway singing performance and
to impart the origin of Spidey’s
new archenemy “Sandman” (Thomas
Hayden Church) from the person
of prison escapee Flint Marko.
Marko’s culpability in murdering
Peter’s cab-driver father Ben
(Cliff Robertson) plays into the
picture’s morally driven theme
of forgiveness that gets hammered
home on several occasions.
During a web-hammock star gazing
date in Central Park, Peter and
MJ are oblivious to a meteor that
crashes nearby before releasing
a crawling black tar-like substance
that attaches itself to Peter’s
moped. The twitchy black goo eventually
takes over Peter’s body, turns
his Spidey suit black and darkens
his mood into an arrogant Goth
punk womanizer with a flair for
black designer clothes and slick
dance moves. Peter’s metamorphosis
coincides with his being carelessly
dumped by MJ after Spidey is photographed
kissing college classmate Gwen
Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) at
a public ceremony celebrating
Spider-Man for rescuing her from
a high-rise building partially
destroyed by an out-of-control
crane.
Harry Osborn (James Franco)
returns to the franchise for a
superfluous curtain call to show
off his “New Goblin” outfit and
flying board with which he hopes
to destroy Spider-Man. Harry’s
dubious presence goes a subplot
too far with his bid to woo MJ
away from Peter. The movie goes
all romance-comedy gooey for a
retro rock music sequence wherein
MJ and Harry cook omelets and
dance around Harry’s opulent kitchen
to the tune of Chubby Checker’s
“The Twist.” It’s a nauseating
filler scene that loudly announces
the filmmakers’ inability to distinguish
the wheat from the chaff of the
story.
More plot fumbling ensues with
the initiation of Eddie Brock
(Topher Grace) as a rival photographer
at The Daily Bugle, attempting
to usurp Parker’s freelance spot
and land a staff job under the
tabloid’s gentler editor-in-chief
J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons)
who manages his earsplitting anger
with prescription medication.
Topher Grace’s peroxide blonde
hair barely conceals the actor’s
golly-gee persona that hardly
makes an impression. Brock becomes
the fall guy for Spidey’s evil-twin
war paint when the creeping black
tar drips on him from a church
tower where Peter uses a bell’s
harmonic vibrations to escape
the inky snare. Brock consequently
turns into a spider-man-monster
dubbed “Venom” who joins forces
with Sandman to lure Spidey into
an ambush baited with MJ trapped
inside a taxi suspended from yet
another high-rise building.
Plans are already underway for
“Spider-Man 4” but without a significant
change in the way the filmmakers
and actors approach their duties,
the future of the franchise does
not look as promising as it once
did. Like the Jazz ballads that
MJ sings, “Spider-Man 3” is a
slow-tempo ramble that should
have been set to an up-tempo rocker
like Elvis Costello’s “Lipstick
Vogue.” Instead, we get a superhero
movie with no lip. CV
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