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No mouth should look like that
Soul Mole tonight, hurrah! And happy birthday to all the birthday people, also.
Like all great zombie stories, the message of 28 Weeks Later is that, while humans may not be much improved by undeath, they're pretty atrocious to begin with, and in some situations there is nothing you can do that will be right. Robert Carlyle's face as he looked back over his shoulder at his abandoned wife, or as he lied to his children about it later, was at least as gut-wrenching as his face when he was later trying to eat them. It's taken a lot of flak for having characters make stupid decisions but there were few which I actually registered as stupid in the heat of the moment - and that means I can believe panicked people would take them. The exception was the US army protocols - OK, free fire when lots of infected and not-yet-infected are charging around, that I can understand. But sending a gunship after a car when it clearly can't be being driven by the infected? Hmmmm. Then again, it wouldn't be the first stupid protocol in US military history, and we do see, twice, what comes of a moment of apparently sensible compassion.
Which said - perhaps I'm being too forgiving of the narrative logic given the deranged geography of the film's London. Fair enough, maybe Crouch Hill was meant to be doubling for somewhere that is next to the Isle of Dogs, but even when they were using deliberately landmark London spots, they were assembled like someone was cheating at a jigsaw.
Perhaps not quite the pummeling experience I'd been led to expect - it's not Aronofsky - but as close as a big action film is ever likely to come to it. Great cast, too - Augustus Hill from Oz in the chopper, Stringer Bell running things, and the extremely good (and very gorgeous) Imogen Poots (whom obviously I checked was legal beforepublicly admitting to fancying her).
From 28 Weeks Later to 28 weeks late, or thereabouts - the final issue of Ultimates 2 finally arrived yesterday. Scriptwise, you know by now whether or not you like Ultimates, and this had the same mix of glossy ultraviolence, knowing and slightly cruel wit, and general dumbness. I like it. But the art! What has Bryan Hitch been doing for the last however many months? Half the time, these people simply weren't people-shaped. And if Hitch isn't about glossy, astounding but believable physicality, then what exactly is he for? He's heading dangerously close to early Image territory in parts of this.
Possibly even later, but arriving in the same blue moon shipment - All-Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder, which I increasingly feel would be awesome if only it came out on a sane schedule. Frank Miller's not trying to do the definitive version, like Morrison is in All-Star Superman. Why would be bother? Miller's already done the definitive Batman. Twice. He's doing an insane, turned-up-to-11 hyperpulp take on Batman, and that's fair enough, and good fun to boot. But you can't do trashy hyperpulp and take closer to a year than a month on each issue.
Meanwhile, in the field of comics which come out promptly but nobody ever seems to talk about anymore, Ultimate Spider-Man's new issue continues a recent tour-de-force of treachery, flawed heroism and the reality of what would happen when low-level superheroes trying to confront a corrupt businessman. Not that Miller didn't tell some great Daredevel vs Kingpin stories back in the day, but so far this looks to me a lot more like how it would actually play out.
Like all great zombie stories, the message of 28 Weeks Later is that, while humans may not be much improved by undeath, they're pretty atrocious to begin with, and in some situations there is nothing you can do that will be right. Robert Carlyle's face as he looked back over his shoulder at his abandoned wife, or as he lied to his children about it later, was at least as gut-wrenching as his face when he was later trying to eat them. It's taken a lot of flak for having characters make stupid decisions but there were few which I actually registered as stupid in the heat of the moment - and that means I can believe panicked people would take them. The exception was the US army protocols - OK, free fire when lots of infected and not-yet-infected are charging around, that I can understand. But sending a gunship after a car when it clearly can't be being driven by the infected? Hmmmm. Then again, it wouldn't be the first stupid protocol in US military history, and we do see, twice, what comes of a moment of apparently sensible compassion.
Which said - perhaps I'm being too forgiving of the narrative logic given the deranged geography of the film's London. Fair enough, maybe Crouch Hill was meant to be doubling for somewhere that is next to the Isle of Dogs, but even when they were using deliberately landmark London spots, they were assembled like someone was cheating at a jigsaw.
Perhaps not quite the pummeling experience I'd been led to expect - it's not Aronofsky - but as close as a big action film is ever likely to come to it. Great cast, too - Augustus Hill from Oz in the chopper, Stringer Bell running things, and the extremely good (and very gorgeous) Imogen Poots (whom obviously I checked was legal before
From 28 Weeks Later to 28 weeks late, or thereabouts - the final issue of Ultimates 2 finally arrived yesterday. Scriptwise, you know by now whether or not you like Ultimates, and this had the same mix of glossy ultraviolence, knowing and slightly cruel wit, and general dumbness. I like it. But the art! What has Bryan Hitch been doing for the last however many months? Half the time, these people simply weren't people-shaped. And if Hitch isn't about glossy, astounding but believable physicality, then what exactly is he for? He's heading dangerously close to early Image territory in parts of this.
Possibly even later, but arriving in the same blue moon shipment - All-Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder, which I increasingly feel would be awesome if only it came out on a sane schedule. Frank Miller's not trying to do the definitive version, like Morrison is in All-Star Superman. Why would be bother? Miller's already done the definitive Batman. Twice. He's doing an insane, turned-up-to-11 hyperpulp take on Batman, and that's fair enough, and good fun to boot. But you can't do trashy hyperpulp and take closer to a year than a month on each issue.
Meanwhile, in the field of comics which come out promptly but nobody ever seems to talk about anymore, Ultimate Spider-Man's new issue continues a recent tour-de-force of treachery, flawed heroism and the reality of what would happen when low-level superheroes trying to confront a corrupt businessman. Not that Miller didn't tell some great Daredevel vs Kingpin stories back in the day, but so far this looks to me a lot more like how it would actually play out.
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"Does he have a face? Does he have hands? Then it wasn't us."
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Grrrr... you know what I'm going to say.
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The difference being that cinematic vampires originate from folklore and cinematic zombies don't.
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My own preference is for Romero or Fulci's shambling hordes, but I reckon 'zombies' is appropriate nomenclature here.
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Though granted, that wasn't a film too bothered about 'believable'. "I KICK ASS FOR THE LORD!"
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This off the top of my morning after head, there are doubtless plenty more if you click on my Comics tab.