Tag: Ralph Fiennes

28 Years Later

2025  Sony Pictures

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  55min

Drama ~ Horror ~ Post-Apocalyptic ~ Sci-Fi ~ Thriller

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Starring: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, and Ralph Fiennes.

Time Didn’t Heal Anything….

28 Years Later plunges viewers back into the bleak aftermath of the Rage Virus outbreak, delivering an intense blend of survival horror, emotional depth, and chilling philosophy. Streaming on Netflix, Danny Boyle’s latest horror chapter explores human fragility and monstrous transformation nearly three decades after the initial pandemic.

The story centers on a fortified community on the island of Lindisfarne, cut off from the mainland by a causeway. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) prepares his son Spike (Alfie Williams in his Feature Film Debut) for a coming-of-age hunting ritual, teaching him to hunt infected with bow and arrow. Their precarious existence shatters when Spike’s mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), falls mysteriously ill. Spike escapes to the mainland with her, determined to find Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a reclusive doctor known for his troubling fixation on death.

The infected are more terrifying and evolved, exemplified by Samson, an Alpha infected with increased strength and cunning who leads vicious packs of infecteds. The film’s hunting sequences are taut and brutal, focusing on survival amid fast, relentless infected terrorizing the once-familiar landscape.

Dr. Kelson embodies the film’s somber philosophical heart. Living among the dead, he has constructed a sinister Bone Temple: a towering, macabre monument made from collected skulls and bones, including those of infected victims and fallen survivors. This shrine serves as a memento mori, a reminder of death’s permanence and humanity’s mortality. Kelson’s obsession with the Bone Temple reflects his struggle to find meaning in devastation, a fixation cloaked in ritual and melancholia.

The film opens with a 2002 scene featuring young Jimmy Crystal, a boy fleeing the initial chaos of the Rage outbreak alongside his father, a priest. His father gifts him a crucifix necklace and speaks of judgment day, embedding faith and destiny into the boy’s psyche. The movie’s closing scenes reveal Jimmy as an adult and charismatic cult leader, Sir Jimmy Crystal, whose followers share his name and mimic his appearance. This powerful connection between the innocent boy at the start and the manipulative cult figure at the end deepens the film’s exploration of trauma, faith, and power in a broken world. Sir Jimmy Crystal was reportedly inspired by the controversial British TV personality and charity fundraiser Jimmy Savile, who, after his death in 2011, was revealed to have been a prolific sexual predator.

Throughout, 28 Years Later weaves harrowing survival with emotional storytelling, including the pregnant infected woman who gives birth amid chaos, a stark metaphor for hope and life’s persistence. The dire truths of illness, betrayal, and loss underscore Spike’s journey from boyhood into brutal adulthood, navigating a savage world where faith itself is weaponized.

28 Years Later and its sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple were filmed back-to-back during the summer of 2024, allowing for a seamless continuation of the story with consistent casting and tone. The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DaCosta with a screenplay by Alex Garland, is set to release on January 16, 2026. The sequel picks up where the first film leaves off, deepening the story of Spike’s induction into Sir Jimmy Crystal’s violent cult and Dr. Kelson’s dark discoveries. Cillian Murphy reprises his role from the original 28 Days Later as Jim, making a pivotal return in the ending of The Bone Temple, which sets up the highly anticipated third film in the trilogy, which is still in development.

Why stream: With a gripping storyline, fearsome new infected, and haunting meditations on death and belief through Dr. Kelson’s Bone Temple and Jimmy’s rise, 28 Years Later offers a fresh, profound evolution of Boyle’s groundbreaking horror saga. And if you’ve come this far on the journey, watching 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, you have to watch this one!

28 Days Later

28 Weeks Later

Conclave

2024   Focus Features

Rated:  PG

Length:  2 hr

Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Edward Berger

Starring:  Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, Lucian Msamati and Isabella Rossellini.

What happens behind these walls will change everything.

His Holy Father, The Pope has died of a heart attack. The Dean of The College of Cardinals Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is summoned to the Pope’s death bed, and following Church procedure, The Pope’s Ring is removed and the seal of the Pope removed from the ring. The Pope’s body is removed from his room and the room is sealed by Dean Thomas Lawrence. He then starts the proceedings to convene The Conclave, notifying and calling all the Cardinals to Rome to participate in the election of a new Pope. As the Cardinals arrive from all over the world, there is a surprise appearance by a Cardinal from Kabul, Afghanistan that no one knew about.

Cardinal Vincent Benitez was appointed a Cardinal by the Pope In Pectore (In Secret) last year. As The Conclave commences and The Cardinals are sequestered, there are politics, conspiracies and secrets that rise to the surface in the chambers of the Conclave. There are four front-runners in the bid for the new Pope;

It gets very political very quickly as the members choose who to support and who has the best chance of being the new Pope. As the voting takes place day by day, secrets and scandals rise up to oust the chances of the front-runners one by one. There are illicit sexual relations, illegitimate children, bribery and Political scandal that rocks the Conclave as the Cardinals attempt to elect a new Pope. It is a very interesting look at The Hierarchy and Politics of the Catholic Church. And the process of The Conclave and electing a New Pope.

It is very dramatic and political, there are intense opposing viewpoints on which direction the Church should head directly related to The New Pope that will lead the way. The Traditionalist wants to return the Church to it’s old ways, the progressive wants to align the church with the modern times, and the conservatives have their own views on which way the church should go. It is very dramatic and pulls you right in wanting to know how it all plays out. As the scandals and mysteries pop up Dean Thomas finds himself playing Detective trying to get to the bottom of them. A Pope must be free of any scandal or any seemingly unholy activity. He must be above human temptation, free of man’s sinful ways, a step down from God himself.

The Movie was great, a great story and religious political thriller with a captivating look inside the workings of the catholic church. But the end……that was unexpected. I did not see that coming and it leaves me with more questions than answers. They could have just ended the movie with the election of the New Pope, but they attached controversy to the New Pope right at the very end. Why you may well ask, I did. Was it the previous Pope’s intention to set all this controversy up to install this new Pope so that his vision and work would be carried forward? Or was it his intention to make a point about The Church’s views on Sexuality?

I don’t have an answer for that, like I said it left me with more questions than answers. It was like a monkey wrench thrown in at the end to make you think and ponder what if or why. I am not a fan of movies that end this way, I like a movie to come to a solid conclusion and not leave you hanging….or at least set itself up for a sequel with the previous events at least concluding that chapter of the story. They could have left out the monkey wrench and it would have been a great movie.