'28 Years Later' review: A brilliant new entry that infects the franchise with fresh terror and rage

It's been more than two decades since '28 Days Later' redefined the zombie genre, and I first fell for its bleak, fast-moving world of infected terror when I was probably just old enough to be watching.
Danny Boyle's original was unnerving and surprisingly emotional, and its sequel, '28 Weeks Later,' while divisive, had its own unforgettable moments (with a few memes). Still, I've always wondered if we'd ever get another chapter… and whether it could live up to the legacy.
Now, just over a year after its official announcement in early 2024, and following months of anticipation and cautious hope from fans, '28 Years Later' has finally arrived — and I got the chance to see it ahead of release.
I don't say this lightly: this is the best movie in the franchise so far.
It's intense, emotional, unflinchingly brutal, and beautifully shot. It honors the atmosphere and DNA of the original movies, but it's also so much more ambitious in scope, character, and storytelling. This is the first part of a new trilogy, and if what's to come is anything like this, we're in for something special.
Whether you've been waiting 20 years or just discovered the series last week, '28 Years Later' makes one thing clear: this story still has so much left to say. Here's my honest thoughts on this new chapter.
I recently watched the previous movies in the franchise back-to-back as a fresh reminder of its unique energy and distinct auteur horror style. It also meant I could go into '28 Years Later' with the kind of expectation most fans probably share.
And I can confidently say that right from the start, this new entry carries that unmistakable energy the franchise is known for. If you went in completely unaware it was even part of the series, you'd recognize it immediately from the unique camera work and the dulled-down color saturation.
'28 Years Later' first transports you back to the outbreak's beginning, showing a group of children watching Teletubbies (classic) as chaos erupts outside — before it breaks in. I don't need to explain what happens next.
Given the horror label, expect plenty of shocking deaths and gore. This opening scene is important, though, because it introduces a character you'll meet much later.
The entire sequence feels incredibly chaotic, with some running shots showcasing impressive use of an iPhone camera (yes, some of the movie was shot on iPhones). I wouldn't be surprised if the phone was strapped to a goat, since Boyle confirmed this was an experimental filming method in an interview with Business Insider.
Then the movie jumps to, well, 28 years later. This time we focus on a new group of characters living on a secluded Scottish island, isolated from the mainland by a heavily defended causeway.
The visuals are stunning, with sweeping drone shots of the island and small details like a frayed carpet on stairs inside a rundown home. That home belongs to Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his sick wife Isla (Jodie Comer), and their son Spike (Alfie Williams).
Pretty much instantly, we sense tension within the family, especially since Isla's sickness causes her to forget things and lash out, particularly when Jamie mentions taking Spike to the mainland for his first kills.
I mean, any parent would be against that, but in this society it's become a tradition for kids turning 15 to learn how to kill. Spike is only 12, and he's an exception because Jamie thinks he's 'ready.'
From there, it becomes clear that '28 Years Later' aims to focus more on character drama while weaving in classic horror-thriller elements. While fans may be divided over this choice, I found it incredibly effective at isolating a single, powerful story within such an unforgiving country ravaged by the Rage virus.
As these characters venture out, you learn more about their dynamics and how they function in this post-apocalyptic era. Alfie Williams is brilliant as Spike, portraying an innocent youth who's just trying to do right by his family, especially his mom, with whom he later embarks on a journey to find a doctor.
Jodie Comer brings raw emotion to the movie, convincingly showing a loving mother slipping into confusion and fragility. Ralph Fiennes as Doctor Kelson provides some much-needed comic relief when the situation calls for it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, though not in the movie as much as I expected, gives Jamie plenty of depth and complexity to work with.
Even though '28 Years Later' remains committed to telling a powerful human story, it doesn't overlook the elements that made the franchise so compelling. The infected are back, and they're more terrifying than ever. You'll encounter the familiar twitching, feral infected, driven by an insatiable urge to sprint and hunt down survivors. But the movie also introduces new variants that heighten the horror.
Among them are bloated infected that crawl on the ground, scavenging for worms. Most chilling of all are the Alpha infected: larger, stronger, and exhibiting signs of intelligence beneath their Rage Virus-induced minds.
These new infected are genuinely terrifying to watch, and the use of wobbly camera angles during specific chase sequences makes it all the more chilling. Plus, they like to rip out human spines Predator-style.
The movie is full of tense and unsettling moments that make you feel trapped and scared, like you're stuck somewhere far from safety with danger hiding just out of sight. One of the creepiest scenes shows a lone figure standing far away in a field, just waiting for Jamie and Spike to make a move.
But amid the fear, there's also surprising beauty: colorful countryside, nature reclaiming ruined buildings against breathtaking backdrops. '28 Years Later' brings together everything Boyle is known for while adding a more thoughtful view of chaos and decay.
If I have one complaint, it's that the ending of '28 Years Later' didn't quite land for me because of its sudden shift in tone (not to mention how odd it is).
While it's clearly meant to set up the next two movies, it didn't pack the emotional punch I was hoping for after such an intense story. Still, this adrenaline-fueled new chapter is so strong that I can easily forgive the ending.
'28 Years Later' delivers a powerful, intense return to a franchise that felt dormant for far too long. It respects the roots that made the original so unforgettable, like fast-paced horror, raw emotion, and relentless tension, while expanding its world with fresh characters and new threats.
Though the ending felt a little abrupt and offbeat, it clearly sets the stage for a promising new trilogy. For longtime fans and newcomers alike, '28 Years Later' offers a thrilling, emotional ride that leaves you eager for what's next.
If you thought the franchise would never return, this sequel proves there's still plenty of life and rage left to burn.

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Yahoo

33 minutes ago

• Yahoo

International Insider: '28 Years Later' Arrives; Landmark Netflix-TF1 Deal; NHK At 100

Another week down, Insiders, and it was a hot one in Europe. We had journalists in France and Spain (at two separate events) to gather up the top stories from the continent, while in the UK, the zombies returned, angrier and scabbier than ever. Sign up to the newsletter here. '28 Years Later', A Threequel Arrives More from Deadline BBC Hits AI Startup Perplexity With Legal Threat Over Content Scraping Concerns BBC's BAFTA-Winning Doc Series 'Once Upon A Time In...' Turns Eye To Middle East Danny Boyle Says He Would Never Make Oscar-Winner 'Slumdog Millionaire' Now Amid "Cultural Appropriation" Concerns Worth the wait: To me, it feels like just yesterday watching Cillian Murphy wander around empty London streets in hospital scrubs in 28 Days Later. It wasn't though – it was 23 years ago and I'm just showing my age. No doubt, however, that the love for Danny Boyle's zombie horror franchise has lasted all that time, as proven by the noise around the premiere of the third instalment, and the first since 2007's 28 Weeks Later. 28 Years Later had become the second-most watched horror trailer in history well before Boyle, writer Alex Garland and producer Andrew Macdonald debuted it in this week in London at a world premiere in Leicester Square – and all the signs are that it's cutting through. Our social media guru Nada and Breaking Baz were on the red carpet to hear from the likes of Boyle, Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes, along with Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Motion Picture Group, Tom Rothman, who tipped us that the film will make a star of 14-year-old lead Alfie Williams. The story is set nearly three decades after the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory and brought down society, in a film that our critic Damon Wise called a 'particularly scathing' commentary about 'Brexit Britain and its little-islander mentality.' Reviews have been pretty good, with some criticisms about the tone, pacing and ending, and its Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes currently sits at 92%. You can go ever deeper by listening to Anthony D'Alessandro catch up with Boyle on our Crew Call podcast, where they discuss the long journey getting the film to screen and why the Slumdog Millionaire director won't be directing all three of the planned modern-day 28 trilogy. Anthony also noted Thursday in his box office round-up that 28 Years Later is tracking for a global start of around $56M. Netflix The Aggregator 'A new kind of partnership': Big platform news this week came out of Cannes Lions, where Netflix and French commercial network TF1 announced a potentially market-altering partnership. In part borne out of the friendship between TF1 CEO Rodolphe Belmer and Netflix's top brass, the companies unveiled a 'new kind of partnership' that sees five linear TF1 channels and 30,000 hours of on-demand content streaming on Netflix. To this point, Netflix has shown little interest in aggregating linear services – or any rival services, for that matter – but analysts have pointed out that the Netflix-TF1 relationship is a special case that has already seen them create Netflix's first daily soap in France. However, there's a sense this is the start of something bigger, as our analysis of the development showed. Truth is, global streamers need to attract older, linear-minded viewers and traditional players need the leverage and access to younger viewers of streaming services. 'Diagonal integration and co-operation' is what the big brains over at Ampere Analysis are calling it. You heard it here first. NHK At 100 Earthquakes and giant squid: Japan's NHK turned 100 this year and there has never been a better time to celebrate the role of public broadcasting. Good thing, then, that we landed an exclusive interview with President Nobuo Inaba, who detailed how the challenges facing pubcasters today may differ from a century ago, but the battles remain the same. In the 1920s, it was the Great Kantō earthquake that compelled the need for a public broadcaster, while today it has become the flood of disinformation driven by social media from which the public needs saving. Only public broadcasters can battle through the noise, Inaba argued, as he called for greater global collaboration and more shows for young people. Of course, public broadcasters enjoy nothing more than a celebration and a 100th birthday lends quite the excuse. 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Lionsgate returned after sitting 2024 out, sprinkling some magic dust in the form of Now You See Me: Now You Don't and confirming Nancy and Matt Grobar's scoop that Glenn Close and Billy Porter have joined the cast of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. The studio was followed by Sony showing the first 28 minutes of 28 Years Later, Universal touting new Spielberg and Nolan projects, Warner Bros playing 30 minutes of July tentpole Superman, Paramount confirming Meet the Parents 4 and Disney teasing Toy Story 5 during a presentation that culminated in a James Cameron tribute to Jon Landau. Following the fun, Nancy and Anthony revealed the global box office is red hot, with Gower Street predicting a $12.4B summer. Over 300 miles away from Barcelona in the quiet city of Cuenca, I touched down for Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, the annual Spanish TV industry get-together. 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WIRED

2 hours ago

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'28 Years Later' Director Danny Boyle Says Shooting on iPhones Let Him Capture 'Startling' Violence

Jun 20, 2025 7:00 AM The British director tells WIRED nimble cameras are ideal for creating apocalyptic vibes and says he doesn't watch zombie movies, despite his massive influence on the genre. Director Danny Boyle at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in Brussels, Belgium. Photograph: Bernard Rosenberg/Sony Pictures In 2001, Danny Boyle had a problem. To make his new postapocalyptic horror movie, 28 Days Later , he had to capture footage of a then-unknown Cillian Murphy wandering the abandoned streets of London. Shutting down the city wasn't an option for the low-budget production, however, and neither was re-creating it on a studio set. Instead, the 68-year-old director made a surprising choice: He filmed with lightweight, low-resolution Canon digital cameras. The technology, which was cutting-edge at the time, made it possible to record scenes at iconic locations like Westminster Bridge and Piccadilly Circus in under an hour each. It also gave 28 Days Later its unique grainy look that makes the movie stand out even today. Almost three decades later, Boyle faced a similar dilemma. As its title suggests, 28 Years Later takes place exactly 28 years after the initial outbreak of a zombie-like 'Rage Virus.' Abandoned by the rest of the world, a quarantined United Kingdom has returned to its natural state, even as pockets of humans and zombies survive. To bring that vision to life, Boyle once again had to rely on lightweight cameras to film in locations he normally wouldn't be able to. But this time, the location was the untamed wilderness of Northumbria, and the camera was an iPhone. 'Filming with iPhones allowed us to move without huge amounts of equipment,' Boyle tells WIRED. 'A lot of Northumbria looks like it would have looked 1,000 years ago. So we were able to move quickly and lightly to areas of the countryside that we wanted to retain their lack of human imprint.' 28 Years Later is a full-circle moment for Boyle, in more ways than one. The original movie turned its director, best known at the time for dark comedies like Trainspotting , into a genre-hopping auteur. But in the decades since, he has resisted revisiting this postapocalyptic setting, mostly sitting out the 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later . His return, sparked in part by the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought Boyle's vision of an emptied London to life, takes the franchise in some surprising directions that both set up an entire new trilogy and manage to tell a beautiful story about life, death, and the unbreakable bond between parent and child. For Boyle, these were all valid reasons to reexamine the world he created with screenwriter Alex Garland. But there was never going to be a wrong time to make this movie—even if the timing feels particularly prescient in the context of our own apocalyptic reality. 'There has been no diminishing of the appetite for apocalyptic stories,' Boyle says. 'Whether that's because we're in the worst of times, I don't know. Certainly, the horrors of the world have not diminished since we made the first film. If anything, they've gotten worse, and they bleed into the film, whether it's the horrors of war or the horrors of infection.' Ahead of the movie's release, WIRED spoke to Boyle about why now was the perfect time for a sequel, the advantages and drawbacks of shooting on iPhone, and why he couldn't wait 28 actual years to release 28 Years Later . 'Poor Man's Bullet Time' Earlier this month, IGN published a behind-the-scenes look at 28 Years Later , revealing a massive rig capable of pointing 20 iPhone 15 Pro Max cameras (all outfitted with special accessories) at their subject. Speaking to me over Zoom, Boyle explains how this smartphone array, organized in a half-circle, lets the director capture complex action scenes from multiple angles at once. 'It allowed us to do what is basically a poor man's bullet time,' he says, referencing the effect pioneered by The Matrix . But while The Matrix used bullet time to visualize its physics-defying combat, Boyle's goal was to capture the brutality of his world. 'We use it for the violence. It was startling and unexpectedly depicted at times.' Boyle's use of iPhones wasn't limited to those giant rigs. He notes that the Apple device was the 'principal camera' for the film and praises the 'immediacy' of shooting on a smartphone over a traditional movie camera. 'Although it's a recording device, because of people's familiarity with it, actors are slightly different with it,' Boyle says. In some scenes, he even handed an iPhone to the actors and had them film from their perspective. There were some minor disadvantages to this method, Boyle admits, mostly due to Apple's user-friendly camera software. 'You have to override the working system,' the director says. For example, the iPhone's camera automatically focuses on whatever it assumes is the focus of your photo or video. That's a useful feature for snapping quick selfies, but for a film director it's a problem. 'Drama is often not following necessarily where the brightest light or the largest object is,' Boyle says. 'It's where you want the story to be.' These small annoyances were easily outweighed by the many advantages of filming the movie with iPhones, Boyle says. He praises the high resolution of the device, which is capable of shooting at 4K resolution at up to 60 frames per second and allowed him to capture both gorgeous locations and the brutal violence on a camera that weighs a fraction of the ones used to film 28 Days Later . 'It gives you a recording of beauty and nature that was a huge part of what we wanted to contrast the horror with,' he says. Inspired by Covid-19 Boyle never thought the world he depicted in 28 Days Later would become a reality. Then, a global pandemic swept across the world. 'You saw cities emptied overnight in a way that one would have thought unimaginable outside a movie,' he says. 'Then it literally happened in people's lives.' But while the global lockdowns of 2020 gave Boyle a sense of déjà vu for 28 Days Later , it was what happened immediately afterward that inspired him to make a sequel. 'The big discovery was thinking about our own behavior after Covid,' Boyle says. In the first weeks or months of the pandemic, you probably washed your hands for a full 20 seconds every time you got home, and you wore a face mask outside. You might have even sanitized your groceries. But as lockdown dragged on, you likely stopped some, if not all, of that behavior. 'You start to take risks over time,' Boyle says. 'It was something we could all relate to. We all had stories.' Boyle and Garland applied that same thinking to the world of 28 Years Later . Their sequel follows a community living on an island off the northeast coast of England and connected by a single causeway that floods each night with the tides. The community of Holy Island (a real place in the UK) manages to keep out the Rage Virus completely, and, over the years, they begin to explore the mainland, despite the inherent dangers. 'Twenty-eight years after an infection, there would be risk-taking,' Boyle says. 'There'd be enormous amounts of risk-taking, because they'd have worked out the parameters of how far they can go and still stay safe.' He brings up the dangers of getting the virus if the blood of an infected enters your body: 'In the original movie, if you got a fleck of blood on you, you were hacked to death by your fellow survivors. Whereas in this one, they can operate. That was really interesting, and that came out of Covid for us.' The Legacy of 28 Days Later In the 22 years since Boyle's genre-redefining movie, zombie storytelling has changed dramatically, thanks in large part to screenwriter Garland's vision for fast-moving Infected. (In interviews, Garland has revealed he drew inspiration from the zombie dogs in the Resident Evil video games.) Subsequent movies like World War Z , Zombieland , and Train to Busan all borrowed liberally from 28 Days Later . But while Boyle is proud of his influence on the zombie film landscape, he's mostly abstained from watching any of those movies himself. 'I've tended to stay away from them,' the director says. 'I always thought it was useful that Alex was an expert and I wasn't. That was a good dynamic in the way we'd approach the films. You have to be careful about either being too reverential or too avoidant. They're both equally dangerous instincts.' Boyle adds that he relied on Garland to warn him when 28 Years Later felt too similar to another zombie movie, while admitting that the writer also took some inspiration from more recent additions to the genre. 'I know he's an enormous admirer of The Last of Us game,' Boyle says. 'In fact, I think that was influenced by 28 Days Later . One hand washes the other, in that respect.' Ultimately, 28 Years Later is just one of many movies pushing the zombie genre forward through both storytelling and technological innovations. And while the wait for a proper sequel has been long and winding, it appears to be arriving at the exact right time. Then again, as my time with Boyle comes to a close, I can't help but wonder why he didn't wait a few more years until 2031, when the film's title would have literally described the span of time between the original and its overdue follow-up. When I pose the question, Boyle's answer reveals his unique perspective—dark, witty, and unmistakably British—that made the franchise a hit all those years ago. 'It would have been cute, as the Americans say, and very neat for marketing, but I couldn't guarantee I'd still be alive by then,' he says with a wicked smile. 'So we thought we should move now, just in case.'

Yahoo

3 hours ago

• Yahoo

See '28 Years Later' in theaters, rent 'Final Destination: Bloodlines' and 'Friendship,' stream 'A Minecraft Movie' on Max

Hello, Yahoo Entertainment readers! Brett Arnold here, and I'm back with another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything. I'm a film critic who hosts a weekly 'Siskel & Ebert'-inspired podcast called 'Roger (Ebert) & Me' covering all new releases, and this week there are tons of movies to put on your radar. The highly anticipated sequel 28 Years Later arrives in theaters alongside the latest from Disney-Pixar in the kiddie sci-fi adventure Elio. At home, recent hits like Final Destination: Bloodlines and A24's Friendship are now available to rent. On streaming, A Minecraft Movie comes to HBO Max, and a couple indie flicks worth discussing land on Shudder and Paramount+ w/ Showtime. Read on for all the details! What to watch in theaters Movies newly available to rent or buy Movies debuting on streaming services you may already have Movies newly available on streaming services you may already have My recommendation: Why you should watch it: First things first: 28 Years Later is the start of a planned trilogy, a fact you'd never know unless you're extremely plugged into reading about movies online. The sequel is already shot and has a release date — 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is currently slated to come out January 2026, though the planned third film has not yet been produced. The movie, disappointingly, is very much part one of three, feeling like an Act 1 more than a cohesive and fully satisfying whole. An out-of-the-blue tonal shift button at the end is the only real indicator that there's more on the way, as the story of this movie pretty much ends, and there's an extra scene that teases something entirely different to come. There's plenty to praise here, though, despite that inherent disappointment in expecting a finished product and getting merely the start of one. The creative team behind the original film returns here, with Danny Boyle in the director's chair, Alex Garland penning the script, and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle doing incredible work and keeping up with the digital aesthetic that became synonymous with 28 Days Later by shooting the movie on modified iPhone 15s. The film takes place, well, 28 years after the rage virus began, and in that time the infected have evolved, but I won't spoil the sheer fun and horror of discovering these new variants. Like all good zombie flicks, it reflects the era in which it was made, and there are obvious parallels here to real-world events like Brexit, and it's hard to not think of the film as a response to the mass death we all experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's a more thoughtful and somber film than some may be expecting, lighter on zombie action than its predecessors and more focused on domestic drama and acceptance of circumstances. It's surprisingly emotionally affecting by the third act, once Ralph Fiennes, the film's MVP, enters. Alfie Williams, the film's lead — a child actor making his debut — is terrific too. Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson both feel more like plot conveniences than characters. It's a shame that the movie is undercut by the 'this is the start of a trilogy' of it all, because when it works, it's damned good, and Boyle is really back in top form, a terrific showcase for his heightened, damn-near experimental style. In short, it's still good but may not be the movie audiences are expecting. 🍿 What critics are saying: Critics are big fans of it. AP's Jake Coyle writes, "Buried in here are some tender reflections on mortality and misguided exceptionalism, and even the hint of those ideas make 28 Years Later a more thoughtful movie than you're likely to find at the multiplex this time of year." William Bibbiani at TheWrap agrees, writing that "the filmmakers haven't redefined the zombie genre, but they've refocused their own culturally significant riff into a lush, fascinating epic that has way more to say about being human than it does about (re-)killing the dead." 👀 How to watch: 28 Years Later is now in theaters nationwide. Get tickets 🤔 If that's not for you... : The latest from Disney-Pixar arrives after a yearlong delay and a new creative team taking over the project, and the movie does show signs of tinkering. It's a story about a boy with dead parents who doesn't feel like he belongs on Earth, so he hopes to be abducted by aliens, which then happens. They mistake him for the leader of Earth, which he runs with. Despite the messiness that rears its head, mostly in the form of too many characters and subplots, it's imaginative and sweet in the way we've come to expect from Pixar, and it's fun to see the storied animation studio trafficking in sci-fi tropes that adults will recognize as references to classic films and kids will find new and exciting. It's a solid effort, but definitely not up there with the best of them. Get tickets. :Another week, another Die Hard variant, this time it's a comedy-focused spin on the material starring Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Anna Chlumsky and recent Oscar winner D'Vine Joy Randolph. The premise here is 'Die Hard meets Bridesmaids,' with the action scenario unfolding at a wedding and the maid of honor being a secret agent, much to the surprise of the rest of the wedding party. It's not without a few laughs, but it's largely uninspired, and your mileage will vary depending on how funny you find Rebel Wilson. Get tickets. You've probably heard of Marlee Matlin, the Academy Award-winning deaf actress, but you probably don't know her incredible story, and she's something of a hero to the deaf community. The movie is an informative profile of her career and activism, showing how she was instrumental in making the U.S. more inclusive of deaf people, including by starting the conversation that led to eventual congressional action that mandates all TVs and TV programming require the inclusion of closed captioning subtitling technology. That's just one example among many, and it's an honest and moving documentary, one that pairs nicely with another recent doc on Apple TV+, called Deaf President Now, which is also worth a watch if you found this compelling. Get tickets. My recommendation: Why you should watch it: It has been 14 years since the surprisingly good Final Destination 5, and thankfully Final Destination: Bloodlines more than makes up for lost time with what has to be the most crowd-pleasing and ambitious entry yet. This movie got a sold-out crowd to cheer the death of a child in its opening scene, which is quite an impressive feat. It's an absolute blast, as nihilistic as it is laugh-out-loud hilarious, and finds a clever and fun way into slightly retooling its concept, which might've felt lame in any other franchise, but due to the premise, it works great here. Let me explain: In the franchise thus far, death always comes for a group of unrelated strangers after they survive some sort of freak accident, but in this entry, it's hereditary. It takes this idea a step further by incorporating a period-set element and suggesting that not only is everybody who survived the opening incident marked for death, so are their families, since they should technically never have been born, according to "death's design," to use Final Destination parlance. That '60s-set extended opening sequence in a high-rise Seattle Space Needle-esque structure isn't just a highlight of the movie, by the way, but also one of the best of the entire series. The bread and butter of the franchise, cruelly funny Rube Goldberg-style death sequences that have a lot of fun teasing the audience with misdirects before landing on the ultimate mode of demise, is in top form here, one-upping itself as it goes with some truly jaw-dropping set pieces. Formula can really be such a comfort, even if it's disgustingly gruesome! It also features an unexpectedly affecting send-off to the late Tony Todd, as it becomes clear that the scene was written with the knowledge that he didn't have much time left. 🍿 What critics are saying: It's the highest-rated entry in the series with 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Radheyan Simonpillai at the Guardian raved that it 'breathes new life' into the franchise, and Jacob Oller at the AV Club says it 'honors a legacy of unrepentant silliness and gleeful gore with a knowing wink.' 👀 How to watch: Final Destination: Bloodlines is now available to rent or purchase on digital and on-demand. Rent or buy 'Final Destination: Bloodlines' ➕ Bonus recommendation: Why you should watch it: The comedy of Tim Robinson is definitely not for everyone, but those that do appreciate his sense of humor rabidly anticipate his work, and his beloved Netflix sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave has become something of an obsession for its devotees. If you've ever watched that show and wondered, 'Could one of these deranged characters ever anchor a feature-length film?" we now have an answer, and it's, quite surprisingly, a yes. Everybody's comparing Friendship to I Love You, Man, which makes sense given the premise and the fact that Paul Rudd costars in both, but a better point of comparison might be The Cable Guy. It's about a suburban dad (Robinson) with an unsatisfied wife (Kata Mara) and a kid who thinks he's a loser befriending his super cool neighbor (Rudd) and becoming a little too into him, alienating him and his other pals along the way. It's funny throughout if you find Robinson's antics amusing and likely aggravating if you don't. It also features probably the funniest drug trip sequence of all time, a wonderful subversion of the comedy trope. 🍿 What critics are saying: Critics love it, with 88% on Rotten Tomatoes; Chase Hutchinson at TheWrap goes so far as calling it 'the year's best comedy.' Robinson's brand of humor, though, is definitely divisive, with Time's Stephanie Zacharek aptly summarizing the average nonbeliever view: 'How much Tim Robinson is too much? Maybe the exact amount you get in Friendship.' 👀 How to watch: Friendship is now available to rent or purchase on digital and on-demand. Rent or buy 'Friendship' 🤔 If those aren't for you... When Die Hard came out in 1988, it set the template for the next decade of action movies. For a while, every flick in that genre could easily be described as 'Die Hard on a ...' John Wick is the modern Die Hard in that sense, and damn near every action flick since has the 'John Wick on a ...' or 'John Wick but ...' feel, and Fight or Flight is no exception. Delightfully, though, it is 'John Wick, but specifically that one part where every hitman is out to get him, on a plane,' which rocks. Josh Hartnett continues his recent resurgence, and he appears to be doing his own stunts here, which adds a lot to the very well-choreographed close-quarters combat. It's a silly movie that knows it, and it has a lot of fun getting as bloody as possible. Now available to rent or buy. A good old-fashioned horror flick — no irony to be found here, just pure commitment to its own spooky aesthetic — that mashes up A Nightmare on Elm Street with a more generic supernatural 'urban legend' flick. It's a cheap indie, but it has a great creature design, the backstory they've come up with is compelling, and there are several unsettling images throughout. It's solid!Now available to rent or buy. A horror-comedy mockumentary that essentially plays like, 'What if The Blair Witch Project was about bigfoot, and it was funny?' It's no Christopher Guest film, but it's funnier than you'd expect from a fairly tired premise, with just enough hilarious jokes thrown in to make up for the familiar stuff. Now available to rent or buy. Ethan Embry stars in this strange and hard-to-classify horror-adjacent movie that plays around in a few too many genres and never really finds control of its tone. After a violent animal attack, paranoia spreads through Spiral Creek. But when Deputy Ren Accord gets too close, his son vanishes, and reality begins to fracture. It's a compelling journey until the third act, where it peters out. Now available to rent or buy. My recommendation: Why you should watch it: This documentary about astronaut Sally Ride delves into an aspect of her life that was once hidden from public view. It's about Sally Ride's life with Tam O'Shaughnessy, her life partner of 27 years whose existence was only made known after Ride's death from cancer in 2012. The dramatizations of their relationship that occur in the film feel a bit off, but once you realize they're doing it because there's no documented evidence of their relationship, the tactic hits home. It's an enlightening doc about a fascinating subject. 🍿 What critics are saying: Lisa Kennedy at Variety notes that the film is "a consequential work because of her insights," referring to O'Shaughnessy, adding that "her candor here marries a spectacular professional saga with the personal love story convincingly." Caryn James at the Hollywood Reporter sums it up well here: "Sally stands perfectly well without any fussy touches, as an important addition to the record of what we know about a pioneering cultural figure — in all her complexity, ambition and guardedness." .👀 How to watch: Sally is now streaming on Hulu. Stream 'Sally' My recommendation: Why you should maybe watch it: I am not the target demographic for A Minecraft Movie. As such, I did not enjoy it, despite appreciating how much personality director Jared Hess, the man behind the cultural phenomenon that was Napoleon Dynamite and also the less successful Nacho Libre, manages to sneak into it. It absolutely feels like a movie made by the guy who made those, and that's fun, but there's just something ironic to the idea of making a movie about the power of creativity and imagination that's indistinguishable from similar formulaic fare about characters chasing a glowing orb. All you need to make a mega-budget movie these days is Jack Black and a green screen! Despite feeling this way, I must acknowledge the movie is a colossal hit and that kids are going absolutely feral for it, so if you managed to avoid taking your children to a 'chicken jockey' screening, renting or buying it at home may be the most cost-effective way to endure it. 🍿 What critics are saying: It's no surprise that critics felt similarly, with a 48% 'rotten' designation on Rotten Tomatoes — again, this is a movie for children, not critics. I echo the sentiment of the Atlantic's David Sims, who agreed it's good that kids are going to movie theaters, even if 'the film occasionally made me want to pop an Advil.' Mark Kennedy at the Associated Press, however, liked it and praised Jason Momoa's performance in particular. .👀 How to watch: A Minecraft Movie is now streaming on HBO Max. Stream 'A Minecraft Movie' 🤔 If that's not for you... Musician turned filmmaker Flying Lotus directed this derivative sci-fi horror flick that's all style over substance. If you've seen genre classics like The Thing, Alien or Solaris, or even something like Event Horizon, you've seen this movie, which plays like a mash-up of all of those films and more. It never transcends the fact that it's a love letter to other films to become its own movie, even if it has some striking visuals. Starring Eiza Gonzáles and Aaron Paul. Now streaming on Shudder. Love Me couldn't be stranger — it's a love story set in a post-apocalyptic, human-free future, between a buoy and a satellite. The story spans billions of years as they learn what life was like on Earth, and the two sentient beings discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love. It's easier to watch than it is to explain, and it stars Kirsten Stewart and Steven Yuen. Now streaming on Paramount+ w/ Showtime. That's all for this week — see you next Friday at the movies! For a look back at picks from previous weeks, see below.