Other Doctor Lives: 28 Days Later… (2002, R)

I’m gonna be honest: this is the first time I’ve ever seen this movie. That seems weird, ‘cause 1) I remember it was a big deal when it came out and 2) I’m a fan of Danny Boyle. But if you’ve been around this blog for a while, you might know that zombies are A Problem. It’s why I only managed to watch World War Z (because Peter Capaldi was in it) through heavy multitasking and inattention to the screen for long chunks of the movie. It’s why I had to really talk myself into myself into seeing In the Flesh and Warm Bodies, despite all the great things I’d heard about them. It’s why I still haven’t watched The Last of Us, even though my pop culture circles were raving about it for months when it first came out (and I love Pedro Pascal’s work.) But this is Other Doctor Lives, and for Christopher Eccleston, I was prepared to power through.

When Jim wakes up from a 28-day coma following a traffic accident, he wakes to a London that’s entirely different from the one he’d previously known. The streets are eerily empty, walls are plastered with pictures of missing persons, and the headlines of stray newspapers littering the streets shout about evacuation. While Jim was in his coma, a “rage virus” was accidentally unleashed on the human population. Anyone infected becomes unthinking and violent within seconds, driven wild with a desire to bite other humans, passing on the virus through their blood. Jim manages to connect with a few determined survivors, and they search for anywhere they can be safe.

The use of the “28 days later” is probably what sets this film apart the most from other zombie stories. While many start either at the inception of the apocalypse or already in the thick of it, possibly with flashbacks to happier days, Jim wakes to an apocalypse in progress, but he never saw it begin. He was in an accident, he lost consciousness, and when he opened his eyes, the world was different. It’s not clear how exactly he survived for nearly a month in that situation—when he comes to, the hospital has been overturned and deserted—but either way, he’s dropped into the middle of things while lagging behind everyone else. He lacks knowledge of what happened, and furthermore, he lacks ruthlessness. When he first meets Selena, he’s appalled by her callous attitude towards killing the infected, to killing someone she’s been rolling with on the undetermined possibility that he might have been infected. But Jim hasn’t spent the last month watching people he knew and loved turn into monsters. He hasn’t had to kill to survive, scavenging non-perishable food from ransacked shops and living constantly on edge and on guard. He’s in for a brutal, whirlwind education, but it also gives him a different perspective than most of the people he encounters.

As with a lot of zombie stories, the film uses the apocalyptic backdrop, not just to provide endless waves of monsters for our heroes to fight, but also to comment on humanity. We see the tiny moments in which survivors are able to remember they’re living for more than just violence, the brief reprieves from the grimness and fear that allow them to enjoy extremely simple pleasures. And we see how survivors have hardened, how some of the most reprehensible things our band of survivors encounter doesn’t come from the infected. That’s hardly a new idea—“The greatest monster is man,” and all that—but the film explores it effectively.

I remember that the first time I ever saw Cillian Murphy was in the trailers for this film, and even though I didn’t actually see him in a movie until Batman Begins, the image of his striking face had stayed with me. He does a nice job as Jim, often overwhelmed and panicked but fighting to hold onto as much humanity as he can, for as long as he can. Naomie Harris plays Selena well—she’s a cynical badass, but we glimpse at some of the horrors that made her that way. The film also features Brendan Gleeson as Frank, a thoroughly unbadass survivor who’s tried to hide rather than fight, who gives Jim and Selena shelter at a vital moment.

Christopher Eccleston doesn’t appear until the second half of the film, but he makes a big impact on the story. The survivors find their way to a makeshift military base run by Major Henry West, who’s doing what he can to keep his men alive and keep the infected at bay. He has a nihilistic view of the current state of England, remarking that what’s happening now is simply “people killing people,” not so different than what it’s always been. He appears as a brave, intelligent protector, but can our heroes trust him and his soldiers?

The film goes to some ugly places, and West is a part of that, so it can definitely get uncomfortable to watch. But Eccleston is just excellent here. West is calmly reassuring, thoroughly unsentimental, and quietly funny. It’s clear that his men regard him highly, and he projects an air that he can handle things. When he reveals to Jim that they’ve captured one of the infected and have been keeping it chained up in the yard, he gets very close to the infected man without flinching (while knowing precisely how close he can get and still maintain his control.) As soon as he comes onscreen, West keeps you guessing.

Accent Watch

RP, pretty good. I heard a few Northern vowels, but not many.

Recommend?

In General – If you’re into zombie movies, I think so. This is a fairly “grounded” take on the genre, and to my admittedly uninitiated eyes, it seems like a good one.

Christopher Eccleston – Yes. Eccleston draws your attention the whole time he’s onscreen. He’s so good here, somehow warm and chilling at the same time.

Warnings

Graphic violence, language, cruelty to animals in laboratory conditions, and strong thematic elements.

Joel Fry-days: A Boy Called Christmas (2021, PG)

This is of course the most Christmasy of Joel Fry’s Christmas-related projects, but it also has the least Joel Fry in it, which I think is definitely against the spirit of the holiday. My least favorite of this cluster of Christmas-themed films/shows, and not just because his role is so small.

Three kids are dreading the prospect of being babysat by their Aunt Ruth on Christmas Eve—they’ve recently lost their mom, their dad has been called into the office, and the “rude” old woman is the only person available on short notice. But they’re in for a surprise when Ruth tells them the story of Nikolas, a young boy who goes on a perilous adventure to discover the mysterious land known as Elfhelm. His own late mother told him stories of the elves and their magic, and Nikolas hopes that through them, he can rekindle the spark of hope in the world.

We’ll start with the story within the story. This origin tale for ol’ St. Nick has something of an “everything but the kitchen sink” feel to it. There are the obvious allusions, like the iconic red hat and a flying reindeer, and there’s also a talking mouse and a chaotic “Truth Pixie” who invents Christmas crackers (although hers actually explode.) Elfhelm is a whimsical place full of joy and good cheer, except it’s recently been turned into a magically-enforced police state due to a bad run-in with humans. There’s a terrible aunt—not Aunt Ruth, a different aunt—a doll made out of a turnip, and lines like, “An impossibility is only a possibility that you don’t understand yet.”

There’s a lot here about hope, magic, and kindness, which is valid, obviously, but there are some odd throughlines as a result of that. Nikolas and his dad are separated when his dad goes off in search of something that will turn their meager fortunes around, and Nikolas frames that as his dad being tastelessly obsessed with money. “Being good is better than being rich, Papa,” he says (and to be fair, his dad does do something pretty underhanded in his quest.) But the father and son are barely eking out a living. Nikolas’s dad isn’t shallow and materialistic, he wants his son to have enough food to not live in deprivation! And it’s kind of weird that the movie is like, “Oh my god, how could you?”

I’m not familiar with Henry Lawfull, who plays Nikolas. He makes for a decent child lead, very earnest. Zoe Colletti, also new to new, is pretty fun as the Truth Pixie. She’s probably my favorite part of the movie and brings an unexpected sharpness to the proceedings. There are plenty of familiar faces here, and some of the performances are admittedly very good. Stephen Merchant is entertaining as the voice of Nikolas’s mouse friend Miika, and the film also features Jim Broadbent, Kristen Wiig, and Toby Jones. Plus, we’ve got a couple actors who’ve been in other projects with Joel Fry: Michiel Huisman (Daario from Game of Thrones) plays Nikolas’s dad, and Sally Hawkins (Mrs. Brown from Paddington) is quite good as Mother Vodol, the elf who’s subjugating all the others.

Over in the present-day part of the story we have Dame Maggie Smith as Aunt Ruth. At the start of her tale, she explains to the kids that “the universe is made of stories, not atoms.” One thing I like here is that the kids repeatedly interrupt her to ask how various things will turn out in the story. Does Nikolas ever see his dad again? Does Nikolas get caught by Mother Vodol? And so forth. These are three children who are about to have their first Christmas without their mom, and they very much want to know what they’re getting in for with Ruth.

Joel Fry plays the kids’ dad Matt, and since the film’s framing device involves a story told by a babysitter, that means the narrative requires him to be mostly offscreen. He’s in the movie for maybe five minutes total, a bit at the beginning and a bit at the end. 

(Side note: Look, I like Maggie Smith, and she obviously does a good job in the role, but I wish Aunt Ruth had been played by a Black actress. It feels shady that three Black kids rediscover the hope of Christmas with the help of their white aunt while their Black dad isn’t around.)

But so help me, I still like what Fry does with his limited screentime. Matt is a frazzled widower who’s trying to hold everything together. The kids don’t want Aunt Ruth coming to watch them (“She’s awful,” “She’s rude,” “She’s very, very old,”) and Matt does his best to reason with them in between drying the dishes and gathering up his work stuff. He apologizes for having to leave on Christmas Eve and promises to be back as soon as he can. When Ruth arrives, she tuts at their lack of a tree or decorations. She asks how the kids are, and she doesn’t buy Matt’s strained optimistic insistence, “They’re doing great.” It all (briefly) paints the picture of a dad who doesn’t know how to make any of this better but is attempting to muddle through.

Accent Watch

Southern British English.

Recommend?

General – Not necessarily. It has some parts that I honestly like, but it doesn’t all hold together for me. Kids might like it.

Joel Fry – Not a must. Although I do enjoy his performance here, he’s hardly in it.

Warnings

Thematic elements, scary moments for kids, and mild violence.

Y tu Luna también: Wizards: Season 1, Episode 9 – “Dragon’s Den” (2020)

Good penultimate episode, although it’s woefully light on Diego Luna/Krel. Even though a big part of the draw of 3Below is the wildness of introducing aliens to an urban fantasy, I feel like the 3Below characters aren’t very well incorporated into the franchise outside of their own show. Characters like Douxie and Archie, one a magic user and one a magical creature, fit in easily amid the trolls and prophecies and spells. The Akiridion tech wiz? He’s kind of the odd one out, and Wizards doesn’t quite know what to do with him.

After a hard blow from the Arcane Order in the last episode, Douxie is at his lowest point. He’s not sure he can press forward, but his friends encourage him to keep going. A notorious dragon might hold the keys to a clue about the all-important Genesis Seals, and Claire has a surprising encounter with Morgana in the Shadow Realm.

Our character of the week is Morgana, voiced by Lena Headey (who’s playing rather according to type—Morgana’s no Cersei, but she has some definite Cersei qualities.) Morgana first appeared in season 3 of Trollhunters, as the biggest of Big Bads, and Wizards gave our heroes the chance to see her in a different light when they traveled back to Arthurian times. Claire’s interactions with Morgana have always been complicated, in part because they’re both wielders of shadow magic, and her recent experiences in the past have left her more conflicted than ever. It’s interesting to see these two meet one another in the Shadow Realm, warily circling one another but not quite fully being on opposite sides.

Like I said, this is a hard episode for Douxie, and he really has to dig deep to reckon with his losses and keep fighting. The episode nicely balances the emotional content with action and lighter moments, giving space for the serious scenes but not being unrelentingly sad for the whole episode. We also get fun scenes with a dragon and a nice flashback.

Side note: this version of Merlin will never be half the being that Gandalf is, but he does admittedly know his way around a pithy declaration. I love, “A wizard does not make mistakes. He makes unexpected possibilities!”

As I said, very little Krel here—I’m pretty sure Diego Luna only has one line, and a short one at that. With Douxie-Archie in one major plot and Claire-Morgana in the other, most of the other characters are just hanging out in hiding, which is where Krel spends the episode. He does, however, spend pretty much all of his screentime clutching Ricky Blank’s head like a security blanket, which is super cute and makes me smile.