OUT NOW: 28 Years Later - The Bone Temple (Nia DaCoata, 2026)

Following the events of the last movie, Spike finds himself press-ganged into a gang of Satanists, the Jimmies.

Meanwhile Dr Kelson (Ralph FIennes) may have stumbled into a new understanding with the rage-infected Alpha Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), a rapport that may hold the key to a potential cure for infection…

Despite enjoying 28 Years Later, I did not bother to go back to check back in for a refresher before this viewing.

I was mostly interested in seeing what new helmer Nia DaCosta would bring to it.

I was a big fan of DaCosta’s debut, Little Woods, and less so her take on Candyman. I avoided Captain Marvel 2 because I just did not care. I was hoping to see Hedda but I am not subscribed to its streaming service (the joys of subscription!).

I am glad that, unlike a lot of women in film, she has been able to build up a decently-sized filmography relatively quickly. Here is hoping this harvest continues.

As for her latest venture, Bone Temple is a good time, with a welcome injection of humour.

It oddly reminds me of Avatar: Fire and Ash, in that it feels like it returns to the same characters, locations and (to a degree) themes of its predecessor 

It does split its narrative perspective, with the protagonist of the previous film, Spike, receding.

 

The focus shifts more towards Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and cult leader Lord Sir Jimmy (Jack O’Connell).

The film wants to be about the conflict over the response to the virus - attempting to understand it and restore/preserve humanity, versus using it as the catalyst for a form of control.

I wish this conflict were more developed .The Jimmies move through this world with seeming impunity - capable of dealing with anyone who gets in their way, including the Rage victims. They should be a more significant force in the film, but despite some depraved early actions, they are never as interesting as they could be.

In contrast, Dr Kelson’s developing relationship with alpha Samson is so well-handled, the cutaways to the Jimmies get in the way.

There is a lot to like - the interplay between Kelson and Samson allows the movie to stray from the usual cliches into something more organic and human. In one brilliant scene, Kelson plays on the Jimmies’ reliance on theatre to generate the kind of religious ecstasy and childlike wonder that their world-view is built on.

Despite a significant character death, there is nothing to match the cumulative emotional impact of the last movie. 

The Bone Temple is a movie of minor notes, but do not take this as a criticism. It is still worth a watch.

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OUT NOW: The Rip (Joe Carnahan, 2026)

Already dealing with allegations of corruption, a veteran Tactical Narcotics Team (led by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) stumble on a drug house filled with more than $20 million in cash.

As they count out the haul, the team receive an ultimatum to leave the house or die. As the deadline approaches, the team’s own internal divisions begin to tear them apart…

I think I read Joe Carnahan’s words before I watched one of his movies. Before he was a podcaster, Josh Horowitz wrote a book in the mid-noughties with up-and-coming Hollywood directors, and one of the most entertaining interviewees was Carnahan.

I have been up and down on his movies - the one I flat-out love is Copshop - but I am always keen to check his stuff out.

The Rip is a solid thriller - it lets out the air at the end, and the further away I get from it, the more I dislike the ending. But up until then, this thing works.

It starts at a gallop, with the world out of balance - a cop murdered by masked gunmen, and our leads under a microscope for presumed corruption.

Even before they have found the titular money, tension is already present. 

Once they find the money, the pressure is magnified - while the team are trying to count the money, they also have to prepare for a potential attack by its former owners.

The first half of the film plays like a siege thriller - potential threat on the outside; conflicted loyalties on the inside.

The movie stokes such a level of ambiguity, it almost feels like it is aiming for a critical view of law enforcement.

The cast are great, across the board.

Damon is such a chameleon, he works as the potential threat.

With no need to play likeable, Affleck is great as a supposedly dirty cop - introduced engaged in a tense interrogation that turns out to be a childish squabble with his brother (action star Scott Adkins).

One nice surprise was Sasha Calle. In a movie filled with movie stars and people who should be (Steven Yeun, Kyle Chandler), she holds her own as the civilian who gets caught up in the titular action.

After this and In The Summers, I hope she is going to become a regular presence in movies - I’m being vague because I do not know if that turns out to be movie stardom or some kind of value-added cult figure, but she is really good.

After such a great build, The Rip’s finale cannot help but come off as bland and conventional.

There is a third act reveal that completely turns the film around, smoothing out its wrinkles and contradictions.

It is not fatal but it made the movie far less interesting. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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Holy Giallo, Batman! Danger Diabolik (Mario Bava, 1968)

The James Bond Cocktail Hour rings in the new year with a throwback review to 1968's spy-fi opus Danger Diabolik!

Check out the episode at the links below:

Libsyn

Apple

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Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)

When world-famous thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) turns his sights on wealthy heiress Marietta Colet (Kay Francis), he finds himself in a trap no policeman could have devised: a love triangle with the M. Colet and his lover and fellow crook Lily Vautier (Miriam Hopkins).

• "I know all your tricks."
• 
  
• "And you're going to fall for them."
• 
  
• "So you think you can get me?"
• 
  
• "Any minute I want."
• 
  
• "You're conceited."
• 
  
• "But attractive."
• 
  
• "Now let me say..."
• 
  
• "Shut up. Kiss me."

Man, no matter how many times I watch it, Trouble in Paradise always sweeps me up.

Taking place in a magical world where characters are judged not by their desires but by whether they are willing to hide them, the film is often held up as one of the final and best examples of sexual frankness in pre-Code Hollywood.

And no one was better at discussing sex than Ernst Lubitsch. 

I recently re-read Scott Eyman's biography of the filmmaker and it spurred me to re-watch Trouble. 

I first watched the movie about 15 years ago. I was in the middle of post-graduate studies, and I was taking a paper on depictions of love.

From memory I think I also wrote about The Lady Eve.

The world of the film is a game.

And the game is sex.

The film’s tone is unsentimental.

I always take a certain melancholy from the film.

The world the characters live in is a sham. They take pleasure from it, but they do not take it for granted. They know the money and jewels can pass, that they can always get more.

The melancholy also comes from the knowledge that this type of movie was on the way out.

Our antiheroes get away with it, almost providing a coda to the pre-Code era.

Kay Francis, a favourite on this blog, plays the besotted tycoon with a preening confidence that never comes across as conceited and arrogant.

As the thief who steals her heart, Herbert Marshall is all unflappable charm. As the third piece of the central love triangle, Miriam Hopkins is his opposite - a spinning ball of energy who could bring their whole caper down.

Apparently some of the onscreen chemistry was the result of offscreen shenanigans - the very married Marshall had affairs with both of his co-stars. 

It is a testament to how sly this film is that the central romantic triangle does not go a predictable route - Marshall and Francis May bid farewell but there is no sense of regret to their parting, only a savouring of what they shared.

Filled with wonderful moments of visual storytelling (the use of a gondola ornament is a brilliant take on the eureka moment), and wordplay (“You see, Francois, marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together. But with you, Francois, I think it would be a mistake”), Trouble in Paradise comes off as a miracle of imagination and understatement.

I always come away enraptured, and also dumbfounded at the ease with which it handles every element. It is the work of a cinematic magician, one of the best to ever do it. 

A masterpiece.

Related

Jewel Robbery 

One-Way Passage

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!

OUT NOW: The Housemaid (Paul Feig, 2025)

After she is hired as the in-home hep for a wealthy family, Millie (Sydney Sweeney) realises the family is not picture perfect. But she is holding her own secrets which make leaving almost impossible…

Why do I not gel with Paul Feig?

When he made comedies, I was all in.

When he pivoted to thrillers with A Simple Favour, I thought it felt a little anodyne.

The Housemaid is the type of movie I gravitate to: an erotic thriller with sexy people doing terrible things to each other. 

The movie certainly builds up a certain level of tension, but it is never that sexy.

I have been struggling to work out why and I think it is a combination of certain things: firstly, none of the actors have any real chemistry. The other element is shooting on digital. There is an inherent coldness to shooting on digital that removes any sense of eroticism. I think Fincher has figured out how to utilise it, in films like Gone Girl, and even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but no-one else.

It does not help that the primary setting - the Winchester’s mansion, feels like a model home. There is a point behind the aesthetic, but at no point does it feel like this is a space where people live.

In the lead, Sweeney is a blank. There is some intentionality to this, but in the early running, when the character is dealing with the family’s increasingly disturbing dynamics, she never convinces as someone who is trying to hold onto her job. The character is in severe economic hardship, but you never get to one stakes coming from Sweeney’s performance.

The film wants to be about doubling, by casting Sweeney opposite Amanda Seyfried, an actress who you could describe as fitting the same archetype of a curvy blonde. But the film becomes about another kind of doubling - Hollywood’s double standard in casting actresses to film similar roles.

I could not stop comparing Seyfried’s performance to Sweeney, and how the film would have probably worked more successfully with Seyfried in Sweeney’s role.

I kept thinking about her role as an ambiguous femme fatale in Atom Egoyan’s Chloe - not a good movie, but Seyfried works so well as a young woman who appears to be both in over her head yet still unreadable.

It is not a perfect one-to-one of roles, but I spent the movie thinking about this mirror version.

I hope the movie’s success leads to more genre movies like this that are made for adults. I just do not think this is a particularly good one.

Related

Spy

A Simple Favour

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1934)

Happily retired and married to wealthy Norah (Myrna Loy), former detective Nick Charles (William Powell) finds himself unwillingly drawn into a new case he has already refused. Where Nick is against going back to work, Norah is excited at the prospect of solving a mystery with her husband.

What a joy.

I had been meaning to check out the Thin Man series for years but it was not until I read Rob Kozlowski's biography of stars Powell and Loy, Becoming Nick & Nora, that I finally took the plunge.

I repeat - what a joy. 

Chemistry is one of those magical things that is almost impossible to describe. The mysterious charge of two actors working together, creating a symbiosis that is so intensely watchable, it feels like you are watching something completely alive and real.

Powell and Loy are absolutely dynamite together. 

Like most great detecctive films, the actual mystery is completely superfluous - a catalyst to get our heroes into action. 

Our heroes do not have any conflict between them: they each enjoy a drink, there are no fears of infidelity (one mistaken embrace just leads to our heroes mugging at each other), and the case’s pressures do not lead them to question their devotion).

The only real friction is Nick’s (relative) disinterest in working, and Norah’s enthusiasm for a caper. Even the threat of death only gets her more excited.

One gets the sense Norah has been so embedded in la dolce vita it takes the danger and unknowns of a murder mystery to get her juices flowing. 

A sparkling soufflé of a movie, The Thin Man would prove to be so popular it would lead to multiple sequels, and cement William Powell and Myrna Loy as a cinematic team.

Related

Jewel Robbery 

One-Way Passage

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!