Latest news with #Lindisfarne
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
28 Years Later, review: A terrifying vision of Britain turning in on itself
Few places in Britain scream zombie apocalypse less than the Northumbrian coast, which makes it the perfect setting for Danny Boyle 's new film. This transfixingly nasty, shrewdly postponed sequel to 2002's 28 Days Later finds a knot of survivors ensconced on the island of Lindisfarne where the otherwise endemic Rage virus has yet to reach. The menfolk work with their hands, the children sing hymns at school, and in the evenings, bitter is swilled by the tankard, while an accordion leads the revellers in roaring song. This little heaven built in hell's despair is separated from the ghoul-infested mainland by a gated tidal causeway which only the untainted few are permitted to cross. You might say its inhabitants have taken back control – but then so has virus-free Europe, which has the entire UK under a militarily enforced lockdown of the damned. The original 28 Days Later – written, like this one, with a beady sociological eye by Alex Garland – noted the civil unrest that had started to fester as the optimism of the early Blair years began to fade. This follow-up doesn't re-take the temperature of British society one generation on so much as vivisect its twitching remains. Call it Disemb-owell and Pressburger: an unholy hybrid of A Canterbury Tale and Cannibal Holocaust which Boyle was perhaps uniquely placed to pull off, and which stands as his finest film since 2008's Slumdog Millionaire. It isn't 'about' Brexit or Covid or anything else so crudely specific: rather, it's a phantasmagorical vision of a deeply familiar, vulnerable, beautiful nation that has become intent on simultaneously turning in on and against itself. Its plot centres on a 12-year-old lad called Spike (Alfie Williams, a real find) who illicitly leaves his island haven to search the mainland for a much-whispered-about doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who might be able to help his mother Isla (Jodie Comer) overcome an unknown disease. Spike's father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a seasoned stalker of the infected, among whom muscular 'alphas' have begun to emerge. (Presumably because fabric rips and rots, one point of difference with the first film and its now canonically sidelined original successor, 2007's 28 Weeks Later, is that the zombies here are obviously nude; sometimes pendulously so.) Early on in the film, Taylor-Johnson is hungry to induct his son into the hunting rite, and their first joint expedition proves as heart-in-throat for the audience as it does arrow-in-throat for most of their targets. The precise moments of impact are captured by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle with a sickening, time-freezing jerk, as if the camera operator from The Matrix has just had his neck snapped. Mantle shot much of the film on (augmented) iPhone cameras, which give the regularly outrageous action a terrifyingly ordinary texture like Facebook photos from a walking holiday in Alnmouth. Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour – very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 – to undercut the ambient dread. And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree) serve as regular nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle toy with the notion of a 21st century British national myth. Perhaps more than any of the above, though, it's Fiennes's gently patrician, RP-accented doctor – whose bedside manner is impeccable even when stripped to the waist and slathered in iodine – which gives 28 Years Later its lingering, Kiplingian ache. A brief prologue and epilogue suggest that next January's sequel, titled The Bone Temple and directed by The Marvels' Nia DaCosta, will stir Scottish Presbyterianism into the mix. What British end of the world worth its salt would be without it? 15 cert, 115 mins. In cinemas from June 20
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
'Terrifying' 28 Years Later receives positive reviews from critics with Ralph Fiennes' performance dubbed 'scene-stealing'
Critics have at last weighed in on Alex Garland and Danny Boyle 's new zombie horror movie 28 Years Later ahead of its release in UK cinemas on Friday, 20 June. A follow-up to the 'great' 2002 film 28 Days Later, Boyle and Garland assembled a star-studded cast including Harry Potter star Ralph Fiennes, 62, and fellow Brit Aaron Taylor-Johnson, for their latest endeavour. Two decades on from the original which saw a deadly virus plague London, the new movie finds a group of survivors living on the secluded island of Lindisfarne, where the virus is yet to reach. Boyle and Garland's new project has received largely positive, if sometimes mixed, reviews from critics following early screenings. Rotten Tomatoes have handed the movie an impressive 94 percent critic approval rating after rounding up reviews from more than 91 film reviewers. Robbie Collin in The Telegraph also handed 28 Years Later a rave review, with the critic handing the 'terrifying' horror movie five stars out of five. 'Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour - very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 - to undercut the ambient dread,' Collin wrote. 'And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree_ serve as regularly nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle ty with the notion of a 21st century British national myth.' The film too received five stars from The Times critic Ed Potton, who hailed Jodie Comer's 'impressive as always' performance. The journalist wrote: 'Is this the most beautiful zombie film of them all? It's hard to think of another that combines such wonder and outlandishness with the regulation flesh-rending, brain-munching and vicious disembowelment.' The BBC 's Caryn James handed the highly-anticipated film four stars out of five as she dubbed Ralph Fiennes's performance 'scene-stealing'. '28 Years Later is part zombie-apocalypse horror, part medieval world buildling, part sentimental family story and - most effectively - part Heart of Darkness in its journey towards a madman in the woods. 'It glows with Boyle's visual flair, Garland's ambitious screenplay and a towering performance from Ralph Fiennes, whose character enters halfway through the film and unexpectedly becomes its fraught sole'. Reviews in The Guardian and The Independent were slightly more critical however, with journalists scoring 28 Years Later with three stars. Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian: 'A little awkwardly, the film has to get us on to the mainland for some badass action sequences with real shooting weaponry - and then we have the two 'alpha' cameos that it would be unsporting to reveal, but which cause the film to shunt between deep sadness and a bizarre, implausible (though certainly startling) graphic-novel strangeness.' While Clarisse Loughley wrote in The Independent: 'Even if 28 Years Later feels like being repeatedly bonked on the head by the metaphor hammer, Boyle's still a largely compelling filmmaker, and the film separates itself from the first instalment by offering something distinctly more sentimental and mythic than before.' 28 Years Later has become the best horror ticket pre-seller of 2025, with the film expected to gross around $30million in its first weekend. 28 YEARS LATER - THE REVIEWS The Guardian (THREE STARS) Rating: This tonally uncertain revival mixes folk horror and little-England satire as an island lad seeks help for his sick mum on the undead-infested mainland. The Independent (THREE STARS) Rating: Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to the zombie-infested world of 28 Days Later with interested, if mixed, results. BBC Culture (FOUR STARS) Rating: Alex Garland and Danny Boyle have reunited for a follow-up to their 2002 classic. It has visual flair, terrifying adversaries and scene-stealing performance from Ralph Fiennes. The Telegraph (FIVE STARS) Rating: This transfixingly nasty zombie horror sequel, starring Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes, is Danny Boyle's best film in 15 years The Times (FIVE STARS) Rating:
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
28 Years Later: A terrifying vision of Britain turning in on itself
Few places in Britain scream zombie apocalypse less than the Northumbrian coast, which makes it the perfect setting for Danny Boyle 's new film. This transfixingly nasty, shrewdly postponed sequel to 2002's 28 Days Later finds a knot of survivors ensconced on the island of Lindisfarne where the otherwise endemic Rage virus has yet to reach. The menfolk work with their hands, the children sing hymns at school, and in the evenings, bitter is swilled by the tankard, while an accordion leads the revellers in roaring song. This little heaven built in hell's despair is separated from the ghoul-infested mainland by a gated tidal causeway which only the untainted few are permitted to cross. You might say its inhabitants have taken back control – but then so has virus-free Europe, which has the entire UK under a militarily enforced lockdown of the damned. The original 28 Days Later – written, like this one, with a beady sociological eye by Alex Garland – noted the civil unrest that had started to fester as the optimism of the early Blair years began to fade. This follow-up doesn't re-take the temperature of British society one generation on so much as vivisect its twitching remains. Call it Disemb-owell and Pressburger: an unholy hybrid of A Canterbury Tale and Cannibal Holocaust which Boyle was perhaps uniquely placed to pull off, and which stands as his finest film since 2008's Slumdog Millionaire. It isn't 'about' Brexit or Covid or anything else so crudely specific: rather, it's a phantasmagorical vision of a deeply familiar, vulnerable, beautiful nation that has become intent on simultaneously turning in on and against itself. Its plot centres on a 12-year-old lad called Spike (Alfie Williams, a real find) who illicitly leaves his island haven to search the mainland for a much-whispered-about doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who might be able to help his mother Isla (Jodie Comer) overcome an unknown disease. Spike's father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a seasoned stalker of the infected, among whom muscular 'alphas' have begun to emerge. (Presumably because fabric rips and rots, one point of difference with the first film and its now canonically sidelined original successor, 2007's 28 Weeks Later, is that the zombies here are obviously nude; sometimes pendulously so.) Early on in the film, Taylor-Johnson is hungry to induct his son into the hunting rite, and their first joint expedition proves as heart-in-throat for the audience as it does arrow-in-throat for most of their targets. The precise moments of impact are captured by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle with a sickening, time-freezing jerk, as if the camera operator from The Matrix has just had his neck snapped. Mantle shot much of the film on (augmented) iPhone cameras, which give the regularly outrageous action a terrifyingly ordinary texture like Facebook photos from a walking holiday in Alnmouth. Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour – very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 – to undercut the ambient dread. And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree) serve as regular nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle toy with the notion of a 21st century British national myth. Perhaps more than any of the above, though, it's Fiennes's gently patrician, RP-accented doctor – whose bedside manner is impeccable even when stripped to the waist and slathered in iodine – which gives 28 Years Later its lingering, Kiplingian ache. A brief prologue and epilogue suggest that next January's sequel, titled The Bone Temple and directed by The Marvels' Nia DaCosta, will stir Scottish Presbyterianism into the mix. What British end of the world worth its salt would be without it? 15 cert, 115 mins. In cinemas from June 20
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Aaron Taylor-Johnson leads '28 Years Later.' Here's where you might recognize the rest of the cast from.
"28 Years Later" is the long-gestating sequel to Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later." Aaron Taylor-Johnson leads the film alongside newcomer Alfie Williams. Here's where you might recognize the rest of the cast from. "28 Years Later" brings the terrifying Rage virus back to the big screen as director Danny Boyle returns to examine postapocalyptic Britain once more. It's the third film in the franchise following 2007's "28 Weeks Later" and is released on June 20. It picks up decades after the initial outbreak turned the British population into bloodthirsty, sprinting zombies. "28 Years Later" revolves around the inhabitants of Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland. The tide cuts Lindisfarne off from the mainland most of the time, keeping it safe from the infected. Things get bloody when Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is tasked with taking his son Spike, played by newcomer Alfie Williams, to the world beyond the island. While Boyle has recruited some talented actors for "28 Years Later," Cillian Murphy won't return to the franchise just yet. Here's where you've seen the main cast before. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is known for movies like "Kick-Ass," "Kraven the Hunter," and "Nosferatu." Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Jamie in "28 Years Later," and he takes his son onto the mainland, where they come face-to-face with the infected. The actor previously starred in the "Kick-Ass" movies, and played superhero Quicksilver in "Avengers: Age of Ultron." He also appeared in the 2014 "Godzilla" reboot and had a supporting role in Christopher Nolan's "Tenet." Last year he led Sony's "Kraven the Hunter" movie as the titular Marvel villain, before getting his first brush with the horror genre in "Nosferatu." Jodie Comer made her name in British dramas like "Doctor Foster" and recently starred in movies like "Free Guy" and "The Bikeriders." Jodie Comer plays Jamie's wife Isla (and Spike's mother) in "28 Years Later." Comer started her career by starring in buzzy British dramas like "My Mad Fat Diary," "Doctor Foster," and "Killing Eve." She made the jump to Hollywood in the last five years, and worked with Ryan Reynolds on "Free Guy," and starred opposite Ben Affleck and Adam Driver in Ridley Scott's "The Last Duel." In 2023, she played Kathy Bauer in "The Bikeriders" with Austin Butler and Tom Hardy. Ralph Fiennes played Voldemort in "Harry Potter" and led 2024's "Conclave." Ralph Fiennes plays the mysterious Dr Ian Kelson in "28 Years later." The actor is one of the most famous British stars of the past 30 years, following Oscar-nominated performances in films such as "Schindler's List," "The English Patient," and 2024's "Conclave." He may be best known for playing Voldemort in the "Harry Potter" franchise, and the new M in Daniel Craig's "James Bond" movies. Jack O'Connell started out in "Skins" but recently appeared in "Back to Black" and "Sinners." Jack O'Connell plays Sir Jimmy Crystal in "28 Years Later," but the details of his role are being kept secret and out of the film's marketing material. He rose to fame thanks to his role as Cook in the teen drama, "Skins," before starring in critically acclaimed British movies and shows including "This Is England," "Eden Lake," and "'71." He later appeared in Netflix's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" opposite Emma Corrin, and played Amy Winehouse's husband, Blake Felder-Civil, in "Back to Black." In 2024, O'Connell portrayed the vampire villain, Remmick, in Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." Erin Kellyman starred in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier" before "28 Years Later." Erin Kellyman plays Jimmy Ink in "28 Years Later," but her role has been kept out of the marketing for the film. She also got her start in British TV thanks to shows like "Raised By Wolves" and the "Les Misérables" miniseries. She started to get more attention after her brief role as rebel pirate Enfys Nest in "Solo: A Star Wars Story," which led to her playing villain Karli Morgenthau in the Marvel series, "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier." She continued her TV streak in 2022 by starring in Netflix's "Top Boy" and Disney's "Willow." Read the original article on Business Insider
Times
17-05-2025
- Times
Empty beaches and Roman ruins on the UK's prettiest pilgrimage trail
After his death in AD642, St Oswald's remains were scattered far and wide. A tooth went to Winchester and a finger to St Paul's Cathedral. Fragments of his skull ended up in Germany and the Swiss Alps. So venerated was this Anglo-Saxon king that his remains were coveted all across Christendom. He was a hero, a kind of King Arthur figure for the nascent Kingdom of England (though Oswald was definitely real). And though his body parts became far flung, I suspect his heart (metaphorically speaking) remained in his native Northumbria, on those places along the 97-mile St Oswald's Way from Lindisfarne to Hadrian's Wall, where he famously vanquished an invading Welsh army. That battle site is Heavenfield, a place name whose peculiar poetry lodged in my mind. One spring day I set out to walk there. First I boarded a northbound train at King's Cross. There were views of Peterborough Cathedral (once home to Oswald's arm) and York Minster (once also containing a bit of Oswald, unspecified). The train slowed beside Durham Cathedral (an erstwhile home to his head). But everyone knows this train journey is at its most majestic north of Newcastle. Here the railway shrugs off the usual lineside clutter of buddleia and barbed wire, the views suddenly become far-reaching and unbounded, taking in shining estuaries, marram grass and marine air. Those on board glance up from their phones as the only 'coast' on the East Coast Mainline materialises: a taunting presence for any English passenger travelling north of Berwick, for these last miles of the country are also the very loveliest. They are sacred too. Lindisfarne soon appeared, silhouetted against a sparkling sea. An hour later, having disembarked at Berwick and caught an onward taxi, I was standing on the tidal causeway that links Lindisfarne to the mainland. The tide was slack and low, the sun shining. Everyone was chipper because Newcastle United had just won the League Cup. 'The weather's canny,' said the taxi driver who dropped me off. 'St Oswald is smiling on you.' The first miles of St Oswald's Way took me inland, crossing fields full of molehills and month-old lambs, the path meandering back and forth across the East Coast Mainline. There were no foot bridges: a lineside phone box connected me to the signalman. 'You are now safe to proceed,' he intoned with a priest-like solemnity. I hurried on. With the possible exception of Cornwall, nowhere in England clings to its local saints as tightly as Northumberland. Thousands visit Lindisfarne because of its connections to St Cuthbert, whose nature-loving philosophy and wild swimming habits resonate among the environmentally conscious. But the island's story really begins with St Oswald, the warrior king who first offered this landmass as a place for a monastery in the 7th century. Oswald was part of a dynasty of Northumbrian monarchs, all with unpronounceable names, a fondness for confusing alliances and a talent for familial backstabbing. All you need to know is that Oswald returned home from exile in Scotland to claim his rightful throne, defeat the invading Welsh and be among the first to spread the good news in pagan England. Over those days of walking, I came to know him in a small way. He stood in stone behind the altar of St Aidan's Church, Bamburgh: stoic, bearded, a king from a pack of cards. He struck a more contemplative figure in wood, carved into the pulpit at St John the Baptist Church, Alnmouth. A pilgrimage along St Oswald's Way is a Christian one, but it is also a journey into the soul of his former kingdom. Of those old Anglo-Saxon lands — Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia — Northumbria is perhaps the last one still meaningful to its residents. Oswald is still present from birth to death in these parts, lending his name to primary schools and also to the northeast's biggest hospice. 'Medieval saints were once perceived as friends and neighbours,' Dr Anne Bailey of the University of Oxford told me. 'Both then and now they seem to offer people a sense of identity, a reassuring sense of community, especially as their stories and legends are often tied to the local landscape.' From the battlements at Bamburgh — the modern successor of the castle from which Oswald had his court — the footpath travelled some 28 miles south along the coast. I walked half of that distance on the sand. These were not the congested coves of bank holiday Cornwall, but Northumbrian beaches: vast at high tide and swelling to the size of deserts or Bolivian salt pans once the waves made their retreat. It was shoulder-season on this northern shoulder of England, so some beaches were without footprints altogether. Only the dogs that outran the surveillance of their owners left pawprints to intersect my own. I tied my boots to my backpack and went barefoot. I picnicked by the ashes of driftwood campfires. I heard the thwip of a passing golf ball on the seaside links. I saw swans out on the sea, and saw too that ancient instinct common to Anglo-Saxon menfolk in the northeast: to whip off shirts at a rumour of sunshine, and expose swan-white skin. Beyond Warkworth Castle, the path veered inland, the direction Oswald would have led his army to confront Cadwallon of Gwynedd, who had invaded his kingdom. Here, St Oswald's Way crosses landscapes as empty as any in England: endless rolling fields, moorlands the hue of Newcastle Brown Ale. Chains of pylons hummed and phone masts relayed calls between England and Scotland. There was an older piece of infrastructure too, present since AD122. St Oswald's Way briefly travels along Hadrian's Wall, reaching its end destination at the tiny church at Heavenfield. It was walking along the Roman parapet that I bumped into its vicar, the Rev Sarah Lunn. • 14 of the best walking holidays in the UK 'Whenever I have something troubling me, I walk up here,' she explained to me as we walked. 'Oswald is still a presence here. We know he walked in this landscape.' She led me to the church — marking the spot where Oswald erected the first wooden cross on English soil before defeating the Welsh, his forces trapping them against the Roman Wall. The church we entered was small, lit only by candles. Mice had eaten out the innards of the Victorian organ so it no longer worked; some years ago the bell fell from the tower in a storm. Lunn explained that the key to Heavenfield was also lost long ago, meaning anyone can wander in and savour its particular silence, and perhaps reflect on the righteous battle once fought here, and other battles fought in other places at other times. • I've been going on walking holidays for 20 years. These are Europe's best I walked many pilgrim trails for my book, On This Holy Island, andSt Oswald's Way is still one of the quietest of England's long-distance paths. But I still sense that Oswald might become a saint for our times: a king who stood resolute when his land came under attack. Not so far from the watchtowers of Bamburgh is the RAF control centre at Boulmer, scanning UK airspace for threats from afar. Lunn kindly gave me a lift to Newcastle station, and soon I rolled again past those cathedrals where bits of Oswald's body were once stored: Durham, York, Peterborough. After spending just a few days on his trail, I felt oddly Smith was a guest of Macs Adventure, which has four nights' B&B on a self-guided itinerary along St Oswald's Way from £485pp, including luggage transfers and maps ( On This Holy Island by Oliver Smith is out now in paperback (Bloomsbury £10.99). To order a copy go to or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members By Siobhan Grogan Following in the footsteps of the miquelots, medieval pilgrims who travelled to Mont St Michel in France, this 155-mile trail connects the abbey in Normandy to Winchester Cathedral. The UK section is now marked with green signs and stretches 29 miles from the church to Portsmouth, weaving through Bishop's Waltham and Southwick. Stop along the way at the Crown, a 16th-century coaching inn in Bishop's Waltham with eight contemporary rooms named after French ships or admirals (B&B doubles from £98; then finish at the Ship Leopard Hotel, a modern, adults-only hotel close to Portsmouth Harbour (B&B doubles from £129; This circular trail from Sundon Hills Country Park traces 86 miles through Bedfordshire countryside, dedicated to the memory of John Bunyan, the 17th-century author of The Pilgrim's Progress. The route takes in various places associated with the writer, including Harlington Manor, where he was interrogated in 1660, and Bedford, where he was released from jail in 1672. The full trail takes eight days. Break it up with stops at the White Hart, an 18th-century coaching inn in the Georgian market town of Ampthill (B&B doubles from £76; and the quirkily decorated Red Lion in Stevington (B&B doubles from £80; Dubbed 'the Welsh Camino', this challenging 135-mile route crosses north Wales from Basingwerk Abbey, near Holywell, to Aberdaron and Bardsey Island, otherwise known as the Island of 20,000 Saints. It follows the trail pilgrims have used since the 7th century and takes about two weeks, passing moorlands, coastline and farmland between stone churches dedicated to 6th-century saints and past a thousand-year-old, 12ft-high cross at Maen Achwyfan. Rest your weary feet along the route at the Hawk & Buckle, a five-room, 17th-century coaching inn in Denbigh (B&B doubles from £95; and the comfortable Ship Hotel, metres from the beach in Aberdaron (B&B doubles from £140;
