Okay. Any movie that features Ralph Fiennes playing Duran Duran records and dancing and singing along is worth the admission. I admit that. But is this sequel to the projected trilogy of 28 franchises worthwhile, other than Fiennes' presence? The thing is, Alex Garland is a terrible writer. I always hated his over-dramatic, yet simple world view. I hated the ending of 28 Days Later, which started the whole franchise. I always thought the Boyle/Garland combo is bad news - no amount of style is gonna make up for its terrible, shallow premise.
Garland has shown time and time again that he is incapable of making an entertaining film. His attempts at Hollywood action movies are marred by his extremely limited and stupid world view - it doesn't matter whether he is adapting from another source, his writing always ends up clunky, awkward, full of sound and fury that signifies nothing. But now with The Bone Temple, it's Nia DaCosta, a prominent and highly capable director behind The Candyman reboot, which I enjoyed a lot.
Seeing this is the second film of the planned three, the clunky plot is somewhat forgivable. And DaCosta handles it well with the visuals. The Bone Temple begins promptly where the previous one left off. Our young protagonist, Spike (Alfie Williams), is now one of the Jimmys in the ruthless Jimmy Gang, headed by track suit wearing, parkour practicing, satan worshipping Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell, last seen as a hick vampire in The Sinners). Growing up watching Teletubbies and believing his pastor father was a satan who foresaw the zombie apocalypse, Jimmy with his handful of feral little Jimmies, runs around the zombie ravaged the countryside of northern England and kills bunch of survivors in the most gruesome way BECAUSE HE IS A SATANIST.
ON THE OTHER HAND, WE HAVE DR. KELSON (Fiennes), who is a sage-like survivalist who builds towering open air ossuaries to remember the dead and believes the virus infected zombies are curable. SO THOSE ARE THE TWO CHOICES YOU HAVE IN POST ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. GET IT??! AND OF COURSE, THERE WILL BE A CONFRONTATION OF THE TWO! All you have to do is say the premise of this franchise out loud and hear how ridiculously stupid you sound. See, this is why I hate Garland's writing.
There's always unintentional campy humor in Garland's writing. Fiennes goes along with it and makes the most of Dr. Kelson's eccentricities: his rendition of pumped up satanic rockstar act while blasting Iron Maiden is gold. But then again, we had to content with our young hero being reduced to a passive wimp throughout the whole film. Why do zombies not attack each other if they see uninfected as monsters? However scientific it pretends to be, The Bone Temple is not the movie that explains these gaping holes in the premise, but punches some more new holes instead.
Wildly uneven, but ten times better than its predecessor, The Bone Temple only exists to serve as a stepping stone for the third movie that links back to its original which came out in 2002, which made Cilian Murphy its breakout star. But this is all Ralph Fiennes. Me, an unabashed Fiennes fan, have no complaints.
