My God, what a rush! That’s almost all I have to say about the movie, apart from my appreciation for the details, of course.

By Emad Aysha
The movie picks up, sort of, from the previous farce of a movie by another director, with the rage virus successfully repulsed from the European continent and safely back on the British Isles.

The story begins in Scotland, a small community that the victims of rage are overrunning, but that itself is a ruse. The critical thing to remember is how blonde all the kids are and how they are being made to watch the Teletubbies to calm them down.

The only kid to survive is betrayed by his father, a mad priest who welcomes the apocalypse. Absent fathers were a theme in the original 28 Days Later (2002), so it’s being reiterated here.

Zoom to the present with a small island and a boy named Spike (Alfie Williams) who has to go to the mainland with his father as a rite of passage, by killing the infected. (It’s all bows and arrows, but I suspect this is a historical reference to the Welsh longbow.)

The small island, located in Scotland, displays an English flag, and the community is steeped in indoctrination with classic war movies and British imperial icons – including, of course, the Queen. They even have an effigy of an infected person, modelled on Guy Fawkes, I presume.

The disease hasn’t died out, sadly, with some who are fat and slow, eating earworms, while others are the usual sort, and now you have Alphas, huge males who are stronger and more intelligent than the starving multitudes.

The boy and his dad make it back in one piece after a harrowing journey, but the boy learns of a doctor on the mainland. He needs the man’s help because his mother is terribly ill.

He disobeys his father and takes his mom inland, is rescued briefly by a quarantine soldier who got stranded, then his mother helps an infected woman give birth to a healthy baby girl, and finally meets the doctor, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes).

TRADEMARKS 'R US: Screenshot of '28 Years Later' with Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes. (That's Eric the Viking's skull in between them if you're wondering.)

In the meantime, as the boy’s mother goes delirious, she calls Spike 'dad', having fond memories of her childhood before the plague.

I wish something nice would happen concerning the mother, Isla, played very warmly and sincerely by Jodie Comer, but the good doctor helps the boy cope with the loss through his massive monument made of skulls and bones.

Spike (sounds like a dog’s name) makes it back to his island and leaves the baby. He (stupidly) wants to stay on the mainland for some alone time and then encounters a mysterious man named Jimmy, who leaves his mark wherever he goes.

He’s exceedingly blond, as are his family, and they take on some of the infected chasing the boy and positively slaughter them with acrobatic delight. The implication is that they are inbred, and you realise from the upside-down cross the man is wearing that he was the little boy in the beginning.

This is a familiar theme in Zombie apocalypse-type movies, with humans, not zombies, as the actual monsters who delight in killing, maiming and stringing up their victims. The non-infected baby, I assume, is inspired by the original I Am Legend story and the Vincent Price adaptation The Last Man on Earth (1964).

Everything else is vintage British, utilising historical and cultural references instead of shopping malls. The infected themselves are a parody of the way Celts are pictured in the English (or Roman) imagination, painted green for camouflage.

A blond Scotsman is a jibe, with TV to placate people into commercialism. Note the scene where the infected are bathing, proving they aren’t as savage as they look. The Alfa, named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), also has a dark appearance, reminiscent of the savage image in British imperial history.

SKULL ISLAND: Jodie Comer injects a little maternal humanity in an otherwise bleak vision of a world turned back to nature, by brute masculine force.

In reality, he cares for his pregnant wife. The stranded quarantine soldier, Erik (Edvin Ryding), himself compares the Alfas to Berserkers, a nation his people considered barbarians, noting that he is technically a Viking.

The boy Spike resembles a Medieval page or an apprentice knight, delivering an excellent performance. Ralph Fiennes actually talks like a middle-class GP!

Sadly, there are problems. Some predictable moments in the story, such as the tension between Spike and his dad, feel unwarranted, and the scene where Isla kills the fat worm-eater is also inexplicable. The crows don’t make sense either.

The gore is excellent, thank heavens, especially the head-wrenching and boiling scenes. Danny Boyle has rightfully retaken his franchise.

In the sordid sequel, a boy gets infected (by his father). Still, his body resists, then an American soldier makes the mistake of taking the boy off the island, only for the soldier to get killed and the continent to get infected.

That’s the opposite message to the original movie, which is to be ruthless to survive, but to survive for a purpose —to find hope. Please see the excellent reviews of Shree Nation and Mary Cherry to highlight this point.

The same here. Hence, the baby girl, now named Isla, and also a scene where Spike talks his father out of killing a little girl from those fat worm-eaters.

Male and female propensities are in balance here – a woman heads the ruling council – and there are plenty of responsible father-type figures, such as the doctor and even Samson, to be honest.

NOT SO SUBTLE: Naomie Harris as Selena in the original, in front of a statue of Hercules wrestling with snakes, and Cillian Murphy in front of a box with 'BUSH' on it!

Post-9/11 militarism is also trashed here. Erik made the mistake of joining the Navy so as not to waste his life away, as he puts it. Also, his ex-fiancée is a Botox freak; guess we really should return to nature.

The luscious and breathtaking cinematography brings you back to nature, especially the scene where they’re running to the island with the starry night sky above them.

You feel like you’re in outer space. Isla, of course, is the British Isles!