It speaks to the skills of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland that there is such a wide range of emotions in what is basically a zombie yarn. In a franchise that started almost twenty-five years ago with 28 Days Later, that film was instrumental in revitalising the genre. Also post Covid, a worldwide plague doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.
We start this time on a small Scottish island that has largely endured the Rage virus due to its isolation from the mainland. Times have become much simpler with that remoteness. There is however a waterway that links to the mainland during low tide and it becomes a rite of passage to cross it and kill a zombie with a bow and arrow. That of course makes no sense.
This foolishness leads Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to take his young son Jimmy (Rocco Haynes) on just such a quest. But the boy is too sensitive and only has concern for his ill mother played by Jodie Comer. During this folly, the two are lucky to escape with their lives and the celebration afterwards has a marked effect on Jimmy. When he hears rumours of a rogue doctor on the mainland he hatches a plan to take his mother to seek treatment.
The doctor played by Ralph Fiennes is a revelation for Jimmy and changes his outlook on life and his future forever. The expertise shown in the storytelling gives the film such emotional resonance and since it is a Danny Boyle work you are also guaranteed some fantastic crazy at some point and in this instance it happens at the film’s end. This is a work where the end result becomes more than the sum of its parts.
Rob Hudson
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