Here there be spoilers, so approach with care. I’m going to try to keep these in chronological order, but this is me, so I may jump around too. I should start off by saying that I love the first film and liked the second.

  • Oh look, you can write a post-apocalyptic film that isn’t focused on the SA of random women passing by!
  • Opens with the slaughter of a room full of children! Wow, they went there. Not that I’m in favor of it, but I am in favor of being bold.
  • Jodie Comer, again, brilliant. What a light in the acting world. Counting the days till she decides it’s time to explore Lady Macbeth.
  • Aaron Taylor-Johnson is one of those actors whom I can never recognize between films. The Movie Database tells me this is the same guy who played the young husband and father in the amazing Nosferatu, but he did not look like the same guy. Tom Hardy was like this for me for years.
  • The first film has a much more fever-dream quality, maybe intended to align with Isla’s state of mind. Definitely unusual, not sure it totally worked for me. 28 Days Later had a dreamlike look to it sometimes too, but was still rooted in what was actually happening.
  • The whole story element of Spike deciding to take his extremely ill mother into the heart of the mainland — when he and his experienced hunter father were nearly killed the day before — on the hope that this mythical doctor is still alive and wants to help them, didn’t work for me. I get that you have to get them out of the village and into the action, but… It did pleasantly remind me a little of the quest quality of the novel The Talisman
  • The giving birth scene. Women helping women even across all this. Very good.
  • Also add the amazing Jack O’Connell to that list of actors I have trouble recognizing from film to film. I cannot believe he was also Remmick in Sinners!
  • Ralph Fiennes, half-naked, dragging corpses to his ossuary, and singing “Girls on Film,” wow.
    • Tried to think: if this is 2030 and he was a Duran Duran fan, I guess that makes Kelson my age-ish?
  • The interplay between Samson and Kelson (was the name similarity accidental or meant to show their alignment?), very good. Chi Lewis-Parry gives the impression he’s extremely grateful for the opportunity to stretch his acting chops (and put on some trousers), and he meets the moment.
    • “I… I haven’t got a ticket” is an amazing line reading.
  • Kelson is also a lonely man but committed to it, and hasn’t gone full mad scientist yet. I like that.
  • The summit between Sir Jimmy and Kelson, so great. Two actually quite intelligent men having a palaver.
  • Iron Maiden apparently never gives permission for their music to be used in films, but they took a chance here, and we should all appreciate them for it.
  • The logical conclusion that if Sir Jimmy is Satan’s son, he should be willing to crucify himself is genius, and O’Connell’s whole “oh hey waaaaait a minute” was excellent.
  • JIM. ❤️
  • You can learn a lot about the characters by what they have been spending their time doing. Jim and his daughter (where are Hannah and Selena?!) have been collecting books, and learning, and Jim has gone from a young bike messenger to a self-taught history professor. I hate that their happy little world will be shattered in the next film, but I also want to see more of them.
  • “In the House - In a Heartbeat.” Had no idea how much I needed to hear that.