Director: Nia DaCosta
Writer: Alex Garland
Stars: Jack O’Connell, Ralph Fiennes, Emma Laird

Synopsis: As Spike is inducted into Jimmy Crystal’s gang on the mainland, Dr. Kelson makes a discovery that could alter the world.

As someone who was mixed on 2025’s 28 Years Later, I came into a direct sequel with tempered expectations. To say I was blown away by Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is an understatement. It’s the best film of the franchise.

All the problems I had with 28 Years Later have been addressed. Where there was tonal whiplash, there is now consistency. Where there was a scattered narrative, there is now focus. Where there was terror, there is now tension. Despite keeping the relative story consistency of the previous entries, DaCosta molds the story into a film filled with dark humor, captivating visuals, and, above all else, hope in a hopeless world.

Picking up almost immediately following the events of the previous film, young Spike (Alfie Williams) meets the Jimmys, led by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (a truly unhinged Jack O’Connell). Following an initiation into their group, the Jimmys roam the country looking for settlements to rob and murder. Spike attempts to adapt to the group, but his apprehension at their brutal methods alienates him. Only Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman) treats him with kindness.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Kelson (a spectacular Ralph Fiennes) continues his interactions with the Alpha-infected Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). Dr. Kelson recognizes Samson’s desire to be subdued via a blow dart, which relaxes his body and mind into a state of euphoria and peace. With their interactions growing more frequent, Dr. Kelson begins to investigate a medical explanation for Samson’s continued safe interactions.

DaCosta, directing her first film without the benefit of her own script, takes the story established by writer Alex Garland and slows down. The main threat is no longer the blistering speed and fury of the infected. Instead, the evils of man take focus, especially on just how depraved they can be. On top of that, the world gets a bit smaller, taking place in around four locations in a small geographical area with less than 15 characters in total. That narrowed focus gives the film time to let scenes breathe without the need to jump around. The characters sit with you instead of existing as a passing fancy.

And those characters are particularly interesting. What drives Sir Jimmy to such madness and brutality? What is Spike doing with this group? What does Jimmy Ink allow for the brutality, but is seemingly bored by it? Why is Dr. Kelson so sane when he should so clearly be insane? These are questions that linger without direct answers. Garland and DaCosta don’t want to handhold the audience, but they don’t want to make things too complicated. This is a simple story with two main story threads. You know the two will eventually combine, but you will never be ready for what happens when they do.

Maybe the biggest surprise is the comedy. Instead of gallows humor with touches of nihilism, the humor comes from the ridiculousness of this world. Dr. Kelson drags away a dead infected body, but sings “Girls on Film” while doing so. Jimmy’s cruelty and insanity often results in dark humor while tensions rise. The entire climax of the film is an extended joke. Once I realized what was going to be happening, I couldn’t stop giggling in anticipation of the preposterous visuals I was about to take in.

But, there are still those famous zombie tropes you come to expect from these films. A man’s head is violently pulled from his shoulders, spine still attached. Knife wounds are viciously deployed in various settings. Bones crunch, blood flows. The filmmakers aren’t stupid. They know what their audience wants. At the same time, the film is not content with another lazy retread of the same old zombie song and dance. It will give you what you want, but also deliver what you never knew you needed.

All of this works due to the immense talents of the cast. Relegated to a featured supporting role in the first film, Fiennes takes control of the narrative this time around. He is somehow able to balance his measured intensity and playfulness without ever veering into the realms of insanity. His iodine-covered skin and penchant for ‘80s New Wave music might seem nuts, but a touch of context or a quick conversation will bring you down to earth. It’s a stellar performance for an actor who continues to surprise.

O’Connell barely saw a minute of screentime in the previous film, but becomes the primary antagonist in this version. Sir Jimmy is never anything other than completely unhinged and insane, but his insanity is rarely at 100. He is not ranting and raving, rather a calculated preacher who commands his minions with certainty and cruelty. Following his performance in Sinners, O’Connell has carved a nice little avenue for himself. Williams’ role has less substance than the first film, though his story is the throughline for the audience. He certainly does a great job of looking terrified and overwhelmed.

Kellyman is a welcome addition to the series, never revealing her true intentions as the most surgical of the Jimmys. She is able to balance deadly precision with compassion and understanding. Even Lewis-Perry, who did little more than stand and groan in the first film, does a standout job with Samson’s characterization. His character is the one I am most interested in seeing going forward in the series.28 Days Later: The Bone Temple fixes any squabbles I had with the first film. Despite the low expectations, I had an absolute blast. While January is usually a dumping ground for releases, this is undeniably one of the best films ever released this early in the year.

Grade: B+

Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Writers: Mitchell LaFortune, Chris Sparling
Stars: Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, Roman Griffin Davis

Synopsis: The surviving Garrity family must leave the safety of the Greenland bunker and embark on a perilous journey across the decimated frozen wasteland of Europe to find a new home.

The disaster movie is our most hopeful genre. After all the chaos, the worst instincts of humanity, and the sheer magnitude of the destruction, the heroes often prevail and there’s a metaphorical rainbow at the end. The end is when we learn that after the tremendous disaster people will be better, kinder, and more compassionate. It’s the artistic embodiment of the light at the end of the tunnel. Which is why most disaster movies don’t get sequels. With a sequel you squelch the idea that everything’s going to be O.K. The only thing that can really happen after the apocalypse is the post-apocalypse, a grim, grimy world without hope except for the legends that emerge from the wastelands. Greenland 2: Migration attempts to build a bridge between these two disparate thoughts.

The filmmakers behind Greenland 2: Migration have attempted to combine the post-apocalyptic and the disaster film and it has mixed results. On the one hand the environmental stakes are very high as space rocks are still falling from the sky, horrible storms, earthquakes, and tidal waves are still trying to kill people. Then there are the people with guns, or just people desperate to survive. It begins to feel like a copy of the original film, but without the sense of safety in numbers that the first film had. The Garrity family, led by John (Gerard Butler) realizes that, with their shelter collapsing around them, that they have to go in search of the mythical new and safe civilization. This new eden is inside the Clarke crater, the crater caused by the largest space rock to hit Earth in the first film. They face terrifying perils, but it feels like the stakes are lower and lower as they survive each new challenge with ease and barely a scratch on any of them.

This family is not only unkillable, but the luckiest people on the face of the Earth, John’s obvious radiation sickness not withstanding. They’re sort of a bad luck charm for everyone around them, though. The Garrity family gains and loses allies so quickly you start to forget their names if you ever caught them in the first place. Greenland 2: Migration is a shorter film than its predecessor and it makes the story suffer in this case. The pace of the script by Mitchell LaFortune and Chris Sparling is a bit like trying to catch your feet underneath you when you miss judge the speed of a moving walkway. New characters are established and erased within a scene of each other. You can barely catch your breath as you go from one action scene to another. There are sequences that could be a whole film in and of themselves, but are shortened almost abruptly in order to move on to the next idea.

Those crazy and intense sequences become the reason the film remains entertaining, though. As the film whips through each scenario, we get to see excellent action sequences staged by director Ric Roman Waugh and his crew. One of the most exciting, if unnecessarily long and complicated, sequences is as the Garrity’s come to a newly formed chasm created by the shifting of the new tectonic plates. If that sentence doesn’t make a ton of sense, it’s because the science of the film is a bit more “rule of cool” than cold hard facts. They first descend to a sort of platform where a rope bridge extends to a tall column of rock in the middle of the chasm. There’s very high winds flying at them, whipping them about the whole time. Then on the column they have to get on all fours to crawl across a ladder laid on its side to the piece of land on the other side. As an earthquake happens and rocks begin to crumble it becomes a mad dash. It’s a thrilling sequence, but add in the human element of people panicking and it gets even more tense and exciting.

Greenland 2: Migration is an exciting film. Much like its predecessor there’s a lot to unpack and escape in with this “what if” scenario. While keeping mostly focused on this one family unit, the film eschews the grandiose message of many films like it in that they aren’t trying to find blame with world leaders or explain how this all came about because of human actions. It’s a film that relies heavily on a suspension of disbelief and tries too hard to recapture what made the first film so unique. It’s a rehash in many ways and feels like the filmmakers didn’t have another idea, just that they wanted to play in this sandbox again with whatever they could throw at the wall. Greenland 2: Migration is a good vehicle for thrilling action set pieces, but it leaves you wanting more from the story and the characters.

Grade: C

Director: Brett Haley
Writers: Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo
Stars: Emily Bader, Tom Blyth, Sarah Catherine Hook

Synopsis: Poppy wants to explore the world and Alex prefers to stay home with a good book, but somehow they are the very best of friends. They live far apart, but for a decade they have spent one week of summer vacation together.

When it comes to the young adult romantic comedy, Netflix’s adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation hits all the endogenous zones the genre packages as gifts to the audience. The will-they-or-won’t-they question hangs in the air. The total disregard for whether they are really right for each other or not. Sure, opposites attract, but similarities are what sustain. Though watching two people admire how similar their queues are doesn’t increase subscriptions.

Of course, don’t forget to make them both attractive pieces of eye candy you just want to pick up and put in your pocket, then send them all over the world to exotic locations. You have all the trappings of what makes The Bachelor franchise so appealing, which you have to tip your hat to the writer of the source material for, knowing almost any studio executive would leap and salivate over it, in one quick YA rom-com 90-minute streaming shot.

Yet, while you may find the performances the People You Meet on Vacation charming, the chemistry palpable, and moments endearing, you cannot shake the fact that the structure of the script’s high-concept emotional delivery lacks two important things when it comes to moving the story from script to screen: there is not one person they meet on vacation who is interesting enough to remember, and the main characters lack emotional intelligence.

The story follows twenty-something Poppy (Emily Bader), a travel writer who has left the quaint suburban life in Ohio for New York City. Even while traveling to exciting locations and writing about them, she finds herself lonely, with no one to share the experience. Her boss, Swapna (Jameela Jamil), notices her disinterest, as if she is just going through the motions. However, when she gets a call from her friend David (Love, Simon’s Miles Heizer), who reminds her she hasn’t RSVP’d to his wedding, we learn why.

Poppy is worried Alex (Tom Blyth) may be there, something David promptly admonishes her for since Alex is David’s brother. You see, Alex first met Poppy by giving her a ride to their hometown of Linfield, Ohio. At the time, they were both attending Boston College (and yet they never met or knew each other, so much for small worlds). Poppy talks a mile a minute, has no sense of boundaries, and significantly shows up an hour late. Alex is more tightly wound than a CBS news executive editing nightclub news pieces. 

Alexi is the anxious type, full of anxiety and a pragmatic way of thinking. Of course, as they make the trek, they begin to understand one another and develop a friendship. Their story then oscillates between the present and flashbacks to their annual vacations together. So, instead of blowing off the wedding, we see Poppy go to Barcelona under the pretense she will be their for work anyway, but she really misses her best friend. 

People We Meet on Vacation is from director Brett Haley, who wrote and directed one of my favorite films of 2018, Hearts Beat Loud. Working from a script by Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo, based on Emily Henry’s novel of the same name, the movie’s secret weapon is the likable performances and serious heat that Bader and Blyth bring to our streaming screens. Yes, each character is a cliché, but they are so winning you can’t help but root for them.

Though the script waters down the book’s themes and color, it is quite an accomplishment for any young adult fiction. None of the people they meet are memorable, funny, or stand out in any way. Nor do they enhance the main characters. Some flashbacks are designed to give you some understanding of their fallout and emotional payoffs. However, these scenes are botched repeatedly. Alex makes a big deal about how he can never get over the last time they saw each other. Then, you watch the scene, and nothing happens or is even hinted at. No overture, no rejections, that left me mystified. 

In fact, Alex is so whiny and mopey that it actively clashes with his supposedly pragmatic nature. The moment they reunite at the wedding, he spirals into wounded rejection because Poppy has actual adult concerns, like her job and where she will live. (Her resignation letter to her boss is one of the most laughable, eye-rolling cases of twenty-something, Big Apple Peter Pan syndrome I’ve seen in years.) While some may say he is wearing his emotions on his sleeve, his insecurity and attachment style are red flags. 

That’s a shame, because both actors are excellent, with Blyth delivering one of the year’s most underrated (and underseen) performances in Plainclothes, and Bader radiating the kind of winning appeal and emotional sincerity that recalls a young Sally Field. If they had taken the time to let moments breathe, linger, and include thoughtful dialogue, as Haley is known to do in his previous work, they could have made a YA film that was not only more meaningful but also a story told with truth.

Of course, People We Meet on Vacation is made for a specific audience that will surely eat this type of movie up, which I might as well accept, since this will likely have me yearning for the days when studios didn’t depend on AI research that leaves me free-falling into the algorithmic void.

You can stream People We Meet on Vacation exclusively on Netflix

Grade: C

Director: Johannes Roberts
Writers: Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera
Stars: Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur

Synopsis: Home from college, Lucy reunites with family including pet chimp Ben. Ben contracts rabies during a pool party and turns aggressive. Lucy and friends barricade in pool, devising ways to survive the vicious chimp.

Many are aware that, in many cases, January is a month of slim pickings when it comes to horror film releases. In quite a few cases, however, there can be quite the surprise found amidst the dump, and while Primate isn’t exactly a refreshing change of pace from some genre trappings its contemporaries tend to fall into, the film is a very sturdy case of ‘getting the job done.’ Director Johannes Roberts clearly wants to lean into a cheeky B-movie nature that isn’t quite as present in his past features. The film mostly works when it leans into the campy and knowing nature of what is essentially a creature feature, and less so when it tries to take itself seriously. However, Roberts is surprisingly able to handle scenes of hair-raising suspense and loony absurdity quite effectively. One could wish that Primate did a bit better job refining its tonal inflections to make it a more memorable experience overall, but the film does what it says on the tin: a chimpanzee brutally kills some annoying teenagers gloriously, and it’s hard not to be satisfied.

The film’s setup is as simple as they come, following Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) and her friends Hannah (Jess Alexander) and Kate (Victoria Wayant) as they travel back to Lucy’s home of Hawaii for vacation. Lucy has been away from home for a while due to her college studies, now feeling a bit adrift with her father, who is a famed author, Adam (Troy Kotsur), and her sister Erin (Gia Hunter). While Lucy has been away, Erin has only been kept company by their only family pet, Ben the chimpanzee, who only seems to gain more knowledge by the day. It seems like everyone is all set for a day of fun until a mysterious bite on Ben’s arm is discovered, leading to what seems virtually impossible in Hawaii: Ben contracting rabies. The chimp’s aggression slowly grows throughout the night after Adam leaves to sign more of his best-selling books, leading to a standoff for survival for these teenagers against a monkey gone wild.

The bloody chaos of Primate’s premise is, of course, where most of the fun will be found, but Roberts’ ingenuity amidst the film’s probable low budget is also admirable. In the film, Ben can’t swim, so a large portion of the film’s runtime takes place within the one location of Lucy’s huge home and the pool that sits at the back of it. It’s impressive just how much creativity is brought out of crafting scenes where the teens must sneak and avoid loud noises amidst Ben’s peril, and while yes, the film is incredibly silly, it makes use of its limited resources and can save the bloody and pulpy kills for its main course, which are a delight for any horror fan to witness. 

While the tonal balances of the Primate create small issues that mostly persist in the film’s introductory scenes, the inherent silliness of the film is also used in clever ways. There’s almost a cat-and-mouse-like playfulness to many scenes of the chimp seeming to outwit many of the attempts from the teenagers to escape, in particular, the scene of Ben using car keys to open a car to brutally bash another victim is a fun sequence. What’s also present here that tends to be more of a hindrance in other horror films is the implementation of annoying characters. The film knows its audience wants to see those characters go out in the most ridiculous of ways, and Ben delivers on some insane carnage at multiple points. 

What keeps Primate from being better is its implementation of way too many instances of taking itself way too seriously within this narrative. Obviously, yes, there needs to be at least a bit of a foundation within the characters we meet before we get to what we paid to see, but there’s a lot more expository dumps about the familial troubles of the main trio of Lucy, Erin, and Adam than I would like. It doesn’t help that it’s done through the most boring dialogue imaginable, and sometimes you’ll be wondering, “where’s the killer chimp in this killer chimp movie?” but luckily, it never ends up a deal breaker for the film on the whole. 

Primate isn’t going to blow horror fans’ minds or stick out as one of the more memorable genre pictures of the year, but it’s a good example of doing a solid job at providing what was advertised: a chimpanzee essentially acting as Michael Myers and killing teenagers one by one. It has its occasional shortcomings and at times struggles to balance its silly and serious moments, but the film’s synth-heavy score and bloody mayhem provide a fun way to kill 80 or so minutes, even though that’s about all the film has to offer.

Grade: B–

Director: Lav Diaz
Writer: Lav Diaz
Stars: Gael García Bernal, Angela Azevedo, Amado Arjay Babon

Synopsis: A portrayal of Ferdinand Magellan and Beatriz Barbosa’s 1517 marriage in Seville, focusing on their brief time together before his departure on the Spanish crown’s expedition.

The first descriptor which may come to mind when reflecting on Lav Diaz’ Magellan is painterly. The opening frame of this film, and practically each one that follows for the entirety of its 160-minute runtime, wouldn’t look out of place hanging in a museum. But Magellan serves a far greater purpose for its audience than merely being a stunning film to look at. Because within all the beauty present throughout Diaz and co-cinematographer Artur Tort’s imagery lies the much uglier truth coursing throughout this historical epic. It’s the painful irony that such natural beauty could exist amongst the powerfully cruel forces looking to bastardize the serenity established by nature and appreciation of the mysteries around us. Throughout the DNA of Magellan, the arthouse version of both historical epic and biopic, lies a much larger examination of a world’s influence on a man rather than the titular man’s influence on the world around him. Despite leaning into narrative speculation on occasion, Diaz bathes this film in a sense of dreadful realism. In other words, this isn’t a stylized film. It’s unsensationalized, never shying away from the hard truths and realistic pain driven by the film’s narrative and literal journey. But that’s not to say it doesn’t feel like a distinct vision from a master filmmaker.

Magellan instantly dazzles you with its crystal-clear digital cinematography. With a camera that moves so infrequently, this is a wondrous example of contemporary slow cinema. Characters seem to enter and exit the frame at their own will, or at whatever pace the script deems most effective. This technique is something that should never be seen as padding out a runtime; it’s all part of serving a larger function. As an audience, we are held captive by Diaz’s composition. Through his patient hand, we become moved and haunted in equal measure. We see serene landscapes, prayer rituals, and even mundane tasks painfully invaded with no control whatsoever. In lulling the viewer into a sense of exploration through wandering eyes and minds, a complicity is built into the very fiber of Magellan. That’s particularly fitting considering so many of the conversations in this film revolve around the complicity of the man, and by extension humans and larger society, at its center.

There’s never a question as to whether or not the actions of Ferdinand Magellan (Gael García Bernal) are justifiable by any means. There’s deservedly no vindication or attempts at sympathy from Diaz’ artistic point of view. But what makes Magellan such a fascinating film is just how easily Diaz pulls from the foundational iconography of hero’s journey cinema and storytelling at large. But instead of acclaim and wild fortune for his titular figure, Diaz instead captures the lies pushing this journey forward and the truths experienced along the way. Despite such beautiful cinematography, there’s little beauty in this exploration. It’s a toiling journey full of harsh experiences, hypocritical morals and actions, and purely reprehensible evils perpetrated in the name of religious beliefs. And the journey, and what it truly stands for, never really ends; instead it festers. Bathed in nightmarish ideologies, the journey captured in Magellan is akin to a painting slowly rotting from within.

The film begins in 1511 with Magellan taking part in the Capture of Malacca. It’s an opening act that immediately feels haunted. This is something that Diaz will home in on the longer his grip remains held around his audience. It’s not long before he goes ahead and makes his intentions for the film as clear as possible. In a moment that feels akin to “the celebratory speech” scene commonly found in war films, the clearly drunken general indicates his intent on pushing forward to conquering Aden. He meanders on about the reasons for doing so, but falls into a drunken slumber midway through. Portrayed quite literally, Diaz interrogates such drunken power and how it’s simply an unquenchable force of history. There will never be a satisfying moment for these characters we have no choice but to follow on their journey. They’re constantly seeking more and more under the guise of nationalism and religious benefit, all the while isolating themselves further and further from the beauty Diaz so effortlessly captures in his compositions.

As Magellan progresses through time via harsh jump cuts, we find the titular figure at various different points in his life. The unflashy editing is one of the many manners in which Diaz crafts this stylistically understated film. Another component is indicated by just how long it takes for the audience to ever get a good look at Bernal. For a star so known for his striking looks, it’s nearly an hour into the film before Diaz ever frames him in a semi-close-up shot. And rather than being treated to a celebratory explorer thrilled with his previous conquest, we see that of a man both haunted and frustrated by his stagnancy. Suffering from a gnarly (and gruesomely realistic) leg injury, Magellan remains grounded in Lisbon with little to do. We witness what can only be described as a moment of somber reflection being shattered by the world jovially progressing forward around him. Unable to partake in another trek in the name of spreading Christianity through violent means, Magellan is repeatedly confronted by the reminders of his previous actions. He seems to be spiraling further and further without any sort of forward momentum. Whereas he seeks action and adventure and is unable to sit still, the audience will hopefully be embracing the measured rhythms of Diaz’ latest slow cinema project.

If the intent of slow cinema is to allow the mind to wander in exploration of every nook and cranny of a film’s subtext, Magellan greatly succeeds. But the characters within it, on their arduous journey across the seas, fundamentally misunderstand this true purpose of sitting in quietude. Magellan does whatever he can to end up on another journey, regardless of whether or not he fully agrees with the true reasoning behind Spain sending him off on his voyage. It’s this necessity of partaking in a hero’s journey that leads to the downfall of Magellan and his crew. Some on the journey lose their minds plain and simple. Others lose their lives or their freedoms due to unjust hatred, bigotry, and villainizing perpetrated by the church. Over the course of this film, Magellan retreats into himself, yet is never as haunted as he is in the first moment we see Bernal in close-up, save for a particularly breathtaking dream sequence. It feels like the moment that breaks him spiritually, mentally, and physically. Even still, he makes the decision to carry on with his actions. Considering this film ends on an inquisitive note regarding the complicity in our actions, it’s fitting that this journey is a nightmarish descent in cinematic form with little form of escapism. Diaz has not captured a hero’s journey where the central figure learns the flaws of his ways and comes to terms with his place in the world. Diaz instead crafts a story where the central figure removes themselves further and further from the humanity he’s claiming to be charitably sharing. Magellan may think he’s the hero at the center of this film, but Magellan consistently reaffirms he’s anything but. It’s one of the many dichotomies present in the film that make this a deeply compelling watch.

Magellan is currently playing in theaters.

Grade: B