Danny Boyle

28 Years Later: The Secret Life of Zombies

Jeremy BeckReviews
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later

If you thought Danny Boyle’s zombies were fast, wait until you see his editing. Back in 2003, Boyle’s 28 Days Later infused the cinematic undead with new and decidedly speedier life; unlike the plodding and implacable flesh-eaters immortalized in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its progeny, these creatures were frenzied and enraged, rushing after our human characters with haste as well as determination. Not all of the monsters in 28 Years Later, Boyle’s return to the franchise, are so athletic—a new species of beast called slow-lows lumber through the vacant countryside like sickly golems—but the pace of his filmmaking mirrors the deranged vigor of his most rapid marauders. One of the scariest things about zombies is that they never tire—they are always craving their next meal—and when it comes to pure energy, Boyle similarly exhibits no signs of slowing down.

Whether his skill matches his verve is another matter. For much of its first half, 28 Years Later adopts a style that proves less exhilarating than simply exhausting. The camera (often an iPhone) whipsaws through the scenery, attempting to mimic the characters’ rising heart rates and sowing chaos in the process. When arrows pierce the brains of rampaging zombies, Boyle invariably reshows the tearing of viscera from a different angle, like we’re watching a marksman’s overzealous highlight reel. Most curious is the hyperactive editing, which repeatedly splices the main action with bygone footage of antiquated warfare, like goose-stepping German troops or medieval British archers from Laurence Olivier’s adaptation of Henry V. It’s a historical seminar crossed with a Jason Bourne movie. Read More

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From the Vault: 28 Days Later, 20 Years Later

Jeremy BeckReviews
Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In 2003, long before MovieManifesto.com existed, I spent my summer as a 20-year-old college kid writing as many movie reviews as I could. My goal was to compile them all into a website, possibly hosted by Tripod or Geocities, which would surely impress all of the women in my dorm. That never happened—neither the compiling nor the impressing—but the reviews still exist. So, now that I am a wildly successful critic actually have a website, I’ll be publishing those reviews on the respective date of each movie’s 20th anniversary. Against my better judgment, these pieces remain unedited from their original form. I apologize for the quality of the writing; I am less remorseful about the character of my 20-year-old opinions.]

28 Days Later is like a Twilight Zone episode on crystal meth. It takes a standard science-fiction concept – a small band of mismatched renegades must save humanity from extinction – and infuses it with Danny Boyle’s high-octane style to create quite a gruesome cocktail. There’s a lot of potential here with such an intriguing motif, but the result is disappointingly bland. So intent is Boyle on creating his twisted, macabre universe that he fails to immerse us within it. Thus, while the movie is supposed to be chic, edgy, and above all scary, we’re too detached to be frightened. 28 Days Later is occasionally taut and innovative, but it is never compelling. Read More

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Steve Jobs: Thinking Different, and Big, and Mean

Jeremy BeckReviews
Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Fassbender, and Kate Winslet star in Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs"

Steve Jobs was undeniably a great man, but was he a good one? That question, along with many others—What is the true purpose of technological innovation? Why did the Macintosh look like it was grinning? Is that really Kate Winslet?—is tackled forcefully and adroitly in Steve Jobs, Danny Boyle’s exhausting, exhilarating biopic of Apple Computer’s founding father. A portrait of an artist as an obsessive young man, this manic, mostly marvelous movie wisely sidesteps the unconquerable challenge of condensing Jobs’s entire adult life into a two-hour film. But while its scope is sensibly narrow, Steve Jobs nevertheless allows you to glimpse the magnitude of its subject’s vision, and to feel the intensity of his longing. It is not another generic movie about a tortured genius; it is wholly its own movie about this tortured genius.

Speaking of troubled smart people, the screenplay for Steve Jobs is by Aaron Sorkin, which practically makes it a clandestine autobiography. (In fact, it is a loose adaptation of a book by Walter Isaacson.) Perhaps America’s preeminent wordsmith, Sorkin is renowned for creating characters who are brilliant, driven, and insufferable—you know, kind of like Aaron Sorkin. It’s small wonder he wanted to write about Steve Jobs, who is portrayed here, in a fantastic performance by Michael Fassbender, as equal parts visionary, egomaniac, genius, and jerk. The German-born Irish actor, who appears in every scene in the film, is blessed with a colossal screen presence (recall his magnificently loathsome turn in 12 Years a Slave), and he is effortlessly hypnotic in front of the camera. But there is more to Fassbender’s performance than sheer charisma—every narrowing of his eyes, every curl of his mouth, conveys a precise combination of intelligence and condescension. The Jobs we meet here isn’t just a man with a prophetic plan; he’s a higher power who’s so convinced of his superiority, he can’t help but look down on humanity with despair and disgust. Read More

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