28 Years Later (2025)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Hell, I just recently got on board with 28 Days Later (2002).

Did I Like It: The movie being sold in this film’s trailers seemed like a fine one. Years after the initial onset of the Rage Virus, there’s a little island village in the United Kingdom that got spared the worst of it.

But for how long?

That’s a perfectly fine log line for a movie, and with Danny Boyle back in the mix* it feels like whatever was going to be on tap, it would be both elevated and do its level headed best to transcend the trappings of the genre.

But that’s not what the movie is about. At all. The island of Lindisfarme is just as secure from the Rage Virus as it has been since the beginning of both this movie and the early aughts. What the movie is really about is so much more poignant, genuine, relevant, and—I really can’t believe I’m going to say this about a zombie film—life-affirming.

I really don’t want to tell you what it really is about. If you want to hear my thoughts on the particulars, there’s an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods that is either already available, or will be soon.

Let me leave this then with the thought the film leaves us—when it isn’t setting up a sequel approaching faster than one of the film’s non-obese zombies—and I never thought would come from a Zombie film:

Memento Amori.

As I type this, the film’s opening weekend is still in full swing. It hasn’t nearly reached its full audience yet. I google “memento amori” now, and I get back a bunch of catamaran charters in the Caribbean.

I have a real feeling that the phrase will take on a new meaning very, very soon.

*Did anyone else think the movie would also have a return from a post-Oppenheimer (2023) Cillian Murphy? Did anyone else that one zombie in the trailer was Murphy? Just me? Okie doke!

Conclave (2024)

Director: Edward Berger

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Having been waylaid by the Oklahoma Flu for the better part of a month, I’m sad to admit that I’ve missed most (read: all but Dune: Part Two (2023)) of the best picture contenders for this year. Luckily, Peacock had me covered and only jammed two minutes of commercials into my eyes at the top.

Did I Like It: I’ve found myself, and really only since my recent viewing of The Exorcist (1973), strangely admiring of the Catholic clergy. I mean, I haven’t gone completely insane. I’m not going to take an entirely new theological viewpoint, and I could really spend the rest of the review talking about all of the bad things that the Catholic church has perpetrated through their myopia. But the best among them seem intellectually curious and ultimately confront doubt with some regularity.

On that front, I immensely enjoyed the film. The deep dive into papal politics kept me rapt with the same level of interest of any political drama. My sympathies naturally went with the more liberal cardinals, and that’s only partially because Stanley Tucci can’t avoid being likable*, even when he’s engaging in some underhanded machinations.

My only real reservation about the film lies with the third act. There’s a twist, I suppose, in just who becomes Pope at the end of the titular conclave. I won’t spoil it for you, but some might clutch their pearls at the turn. The turn itself isn’t my problem, though. It’s that the twist doesn’t seem to come from anything else that happens in the film. It almost feels like the ending of some other film about gender politics in the Vatican found itself grafted onto this film. I far more enjoyed the road to that twist than the twist itself.

*Truly, they had to pit the man against Tom Hanks to make him anything less than likable in The Terminal (2004).

Red Dragon (2002)

Director: Brett Ratner

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Kietel

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. For some reason I can’t remember if I saw this or Manhunter (1986) first, but I think it might have been this one, as I saw it in the theater during my halcyon days as a high school senior, and I’m almost certain I didn’t see Manhunter until college. But who can remember anymore? My memory palace is for shit, if you’ll forgive my rudeness.

Did I Like It: No discussion of this film—as the eventual episode of Friendibals will attest—can be complete without dwelling on one topic before any others. No, it isn’t the inevitable comparisons of William Petersen vs. Edward Norton (they’re both fine; Petersen is more demonstrably mad around the edges), Ralph Fiennes vs. Tom Noonan (Fiennes feels more developed, but that might owe more to the script than anything else), Mann vs. Ratner (Mann is always stylish to the fault, so much so to the point that his films feel dated minutes after they’re released, while I don’t think Ratner has had an artistic ambition greater than calling “action” and “cut” when he’s supposed to), and ultimately Cox vs. Hopkins (the pictures for Hopkins’ obituary will inevitably include Lecter, although he feels bored and overly hammy here, whereas Cox relaxes into his evil).

While an analysis of all of these topics will give a pretty good picture of where this film lies not only against its previous adaptation, but among the rest of the Lecter series and serial killer films as a whole, the one topic that must, without a doubt be discussed is Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).  Yes, that one. The one with Pierce Brosnan*.

While going through the Leeds home, Graham (Norton) looks through a drawer of VHS tapes, before watching their home movies and staring at, but never really seeing the way he will catch the Tooth Fairy (Fiennes). Among the tapes area copy of Jaws (1975), which makes sense as it is also a Universal Release, the artwork features nothing that might run afoul of likeness rights, and most importantly, clearly something that would be available on home video “several years” after Graham runs afoul of Lecter in the film’s prologue.

But why the hell is Mrs. Doubtfire there? Are we saying this film takes place in (at the earliest) 1994? What does this say about when The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or, for that mater Hannibal (2001) take place?

I may have missed the point of the whole thing, but if I can zero in on that for most of the film’s runtime—in a series that’s main stock and trade is characters noticing things and making connection which not everyone else might—then maybe it’s the film’s—and really, Ratner’s—fault for not getting Doubtfire out of the Leeds’ house. I submit to you that, for all his journeymen level work and the cast’s impressive ability to elevate the proceedings, Brett Ratner missed the point, not I.

*Am I remembering that right? Was Pierce Brosnan in Mrs. Doubtfire. I’m almost sure he was, and I kind of don’t want to go look it up to find out.

Holmes & Watson (2018)

Director: Etan Cohen

Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Rebecca Hall, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen it Before: No. It feels like a weird time. I live in an age when it takes something to get me out to the theater (indeed, I have only been once since I was vaccinated in April). In the before times, I’d go see anything, and I didn’t even need a Moviepass to convince me. Despite enjoying Ferrell and Reilly, and being—if a bit of neophyte—a Holmesian at heart, this one missed me.

The word of mouth was truly that toxic. 

Did I Like It: The notion of a comedy Sherlock Holmes film is not a bad one. Without a Clue (1988) performed that beyond a doubt. Even this film, on spec, wasn’t a terrible idea for the many, many years it languished in development hell. Originally, it would have had Ferrell as Watson and Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes. That’s actually pretty great casting. That film could have turned out fine, if the anarchic spirit of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) would have brought to its full potential.

That is not the cast we got. Nor is it the film we got.

Reilly can cut the right sort of Nigel Bruce-esque buffoon that is the instinct of many who approach Baker Street, but Ferrell, on spec, isn’t in the slightest bit Holmes. His whole comedic personae is based on the screaming, overconfident idiot. Holmes can be an idiot, but he needs to always look like he’s trying to figure things out. Baron Cohen could have done that in his sleep.

It might feel reductive to judge what is clearly meant to be a comedy by “how many times I laughed,” but when I know it was no more than twice, with one of them being in the title card, that’s not a great jumping off point for discussing the film.

Also, that Billy Zane cameo was such a drag, and stuck out like such a sore thumb, I couldn’t even recommend the film as the kind of thing you could benignly play in the background and ignore.

It is a failure. Go watch Without a Clue, which I might very well do now that I’ve thought about it far more than the film in question here.

Skyfall (2012)

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen It Before?: It’s actually the only Bond film that I managed to talk my wife into seeing in the theater. I can report that she thought it was “okay.”

Did I like it?: As I continued to read through Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond, I was mystified that somehow this film has reduced in estimation by the viewing community at large.

Is it quite as good as Casino Royale (2006)? That’s one of those classic comparisons that is in equal measures resoundingly unfair and completely unavoidable. Royale is the first legitimate interpretation of a Fleming novel since probably Goldfinger (1964) but really, truly From Russia With Love (1963). This movie doesn’t bother to do what every other Bond film does and try to synthesize the most time-worn wisps of a story around the barest elements of the Fleming canon. This one somehow re-examines the modern Bond and the literary Bond and manages to create something that Fleming would have been proud of. Or at least, something Fleming would have gotten embroiled into a decades long copyright that would make many of the subsequent films worse for the effort. Some might complain that we jumped from Bond’s earliest missions to the period in time when he desperately wants to hang up his Walther forever, but if I understand the realities of the 00-unit in the Fleming books, the limited shelf life fits.

Notice how I didn’t really answer the question? I don’t want to pick between these two. They’re the best (so far) in a run for Craig where the weak links in the chain would be the best film another Bond could ever hope to do.

So, let’s dwell on what the film does astonishingly well. The theme song from Adele is the greatest Bond opener since at least the brief experiment with New Wave during the bridge between Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton, and really, truly since Shirley Bassey last graced us with her presence in Moonraker (1979). I mean, it may be my favorite Bond theme ever, and that is some rarified company.

And then there is that ending. No, not the extended sequence borrowing heavily from Home Alone (1990) that some people seem bent out of shape about, although I have a feeling people would be more bothered by it if the original long-shot plan of having Sean Connery play the groundskeeper, Kincade (Albert Finney)*. I speak more of that final sequence where Craig abandons the prequel elements of his films up until that point and goes through the gauntlet of M’s (Ralph Fiennes) leather door to be finally a fully-formed Bond.

“Are you ready to get back to work?”

“With pleasure.”

Sure beats the hell out of “I thought Christmas only comes once a year” as far as last lines in Bond films is concerned.

Now if only that next film had capitalized on the promise laid here a little better. That would’ve been great.

*The notion that Connery would somehow skip out on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) but instead come out of retirement for an EON production is mystifying beyond my previous capacity for understanding. By all accounts—and the oral history mentioned above makes no reference to the notion—the Broccoli’s abandoned the notion before even approaching Connery. But what if they had gone completely crazy on the idea. They could have absolutely unified the continuity of the entire series if they slapped Pierce Brosnan in the Javier Bardem role? Yes, the movie would be an astonishing mess, and most of the 90s Bond movies would somehow mean even less, but we’d probably still be talking about it.