The Plot Armor king and the technical shift
We go back to Ian (played by Ralph Fiennes, from The Menu, Harry Potter and soooo many more) and Spike, the plot armor king. Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone defy inevitable death like he does. He should have played the lottery (if it still existed in his universe). This entry is written, once again by Alex Garland, who was behind the 1st and 3rd.
On the plus side, they really cranked up the blood and gore, the tension and the overall uneasy feeling. The camera work is insanely beautiful. On the down side, I don’t think many people go see « zombie/infected » movies to actually see the zombies get cured in real time. Like ever. And I missed the grainy look of the first one, but that’s beside the point.
A Heartbreaking opening and the Highland void
The opening scenes of this franchise always stand on a golden pedestal in my heart, but this one wasn’t special and it hurts. It was forgettable and it broke my heart. I was expecting so much more.
The ending was a little plot twist. Seeing how the pregnant lady got away, it’s almost certain that the last movie in the trilogy will bring it all back together to fall onto our dear old Jim (Cillian Murphy, from the first one). That being said, I was expecting at least a callback to the highlands. England is vast and filled with the infected, but not one shot of Spike’s dad looking for him? At all? They had time to literally show how Ian drags corpses back to his skull pile but not one shot of the potential cult brewing in the background? Ok. It would have been glorious to have the Jimmys in that village. A cult vs cult fight haha.
Sir Lord Jimmy : Elevated Horror vs. pure violence
I’m gonna be honest with you all, I’m one of the weirdos that likes elevated horror but also gets mildly bored from it if it lacks violence. The Jimmys saved this movie for me (I know, it’s saying a lot). I didn’t pay for a horror movie ticket to watch two middle aged men get high for half an hour, but the barn scene had me at the edge of my seat.
We always know that the real monsters in zombie movies are the humans and boy oh boy did Sir Jimmy deliver (at least until he whimpered at the end, that’s where he lost me). I get that he was a traumatized little kid that had to grow up by himself in a zombie-infected apocalyptic world, possibly with an undiagnosed mental illness, but his response to trauma being more trauma was actually brilliant.
Yes, I have a thing for assholes, and yes, it’s always worse when they have a Scottish accent. Good characters are often boring, the weird ones are soooo much more interesting to discover. The whole vibe of the « Jimmys » is what I picture Die Antwoord would do in a lawless world (they already did some really shitty stuff to be honest, so we’re not that far off).
The character gap : Psychopaths vs. main characters
The main issue that I have here is that they took time to write a nuanced version of Jimmy. They developed his character from traumatized kid, to psychopath, to almost vulnerable while talking to Ian… Meanwhile Spike is just a prompt used to react to his environment. Should we care if he dies in the next installment? Because so far I don’t. I cared more about some of the Jimmys. And that’s terrifying. That Teletubbies dance? That’s terrifying.
I might be alone in this, but I really liked the fact that we never knew whether or not Jim made it out alive. Now they have a chance to ruin his character arc and I’m not too fond of it.
The elephant in the room : the Savile problem
As per my last review, I continue to be disappointed by the fact that the crew decided to bring up Jimmy Savile again (even if it’s to turn him into a lunatic) in the 2020s, being well aware of his past. AND, as expected, the newer generation, or most people outside of the UK, had never even heard of him… so OF COURSE a few of them decided to cosplay the « Jimmys » for fun at the premieres. A cosplay of a British pedophile.
That’s on the team for making his character front and center at the end of the last installment. Doing power ranger flips and killing zombies, making him look « cool » and it makes me sick that the whole team went through with it despite knowing what he did.
Therapy vs. Teletubbies
All in all, I see the various ways they throw death and empathy at us for us to analyze, and I applaud the sheer insanity they’re going for, but turning the main threat into a poetic therapy session is too strange of a choice for me. Give me more of the Clockwork Orange Teletubbies and a bit less zombie introspection.
It’s nice that they’ve decided to give him clothes at some point though.
My rating : 3,5/5 bats.
🦇🦇🦇🍆 🍆
(Picture a half eaten bat there, the emojis won’t let me do it)