Escapism

Warfare captures the shock that can send soldiers into a paralysed state of fear, unable to process their thoughts as they struggle to regain the composure required to survive. Warfare tells the story of a surveillance mission that goes wrong for a platoon of American Navy SEALs in insurgent territory within Iraq. It’s billed as an authentic account of an experience, writer and director Ray Mendoza endured during the Iraq War. With this film he has collaborated with Alex Garland who wrote and directed it alongside him. This film primarily focuses on the experience of the soldiers amidst the chaos of war, where situations can spiral into unpredictable outcomes. It’s a tense film that is paced in a manner that feels grounded. The first act is slow but I didn’t find that to be an issue because it allowed for the downtime during operations to displayed. Usually moments like this wouldn’t make it into the script for a war film, let alone the final cut. It’s during this opening act that we...

This isn’t one of those sequels that feels like the director is simply going through the motions. Instead it feels like a shot of adrenaline in cinematic form with the energy and style you’d expect from Danny Boyle. Back in 2002 Danny Boyle and Alex Garland combined to create 28 Days Later , a British horror film that revitalised the zombie sub genre and introduced new elements which in the two decades since have proved to be very influential. 28 Weeks Later is a surprisingly good sequel which released in 2007. Now 28 Years Later has arrived in cinemas and marks the return of the original’s creative pairing, Boyle and Garland. 28 Years Later follows a group of survivors who live on a small island isolated from the mainland where the rage virus continues to spread. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his son Spike (Alfie Williams) to the mainland to teach him how to survive amongst the infected, whilst there they discover new secrets and horrors that have mutated. From the very first ...