A New Hope

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (2016)

Sennia Nanua begins the film strapped into a wheelchair wearing a Guantanamo Bay-style jumpsuit, before progressing to a Hannibal Lecter face mask and eventual freedom. Ultimately, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS addresses its dystopian zombie world with issues of race, gender, and generational responsibilities.

ADAPTED from his own best selling novel by M.R. Carey, this absorbing dystopian/infection horror sees humanity ravaged by a fungal disease, were the afflicted become mindless, cannibalistic "Hungries." A small band of hybrid children - including the exceptional Melanie (Sennia Nanua) - hold the key to a vaccine, and go to "school" at an army base where they are simultaneously educated by Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) and experimented upon by Dr Caldwell (Glenn Close). When the camp and lab is overrun, a muzzled Melanie, Helen and Caldwell escape. Together with Sgt Parks (Paddy Considine) and soldier Gallagher (Fisayo Akinade), the group attempt to communicate with survival cell "The Beacon," while scavenging for food and monitoring the behaviour of their prized asset. 

Utilising authentic locations such as RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, and with urban London landscapes doubled by drone footage of Prypjat near Chernobyl, the production is firmly helmed by esteemed television director Colm McCarthy. THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS mixes 28 DAYS LATER with that always effective mechanism for terror, children, but also follows Danny Boyle's release for referencing themes from cult entertainment. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is wonderfully alluded to in the mutating mass of decomposing bodies encircling BT Tower, threatening to spread its spores for the "second phase." Pod-like behaviour is also evident in the genuinely creepy notion of standing sleep, where the Hungries react to the slightest movement. It is also consistently grisly and black humoured: for example, Caldwell reveals to Melanie that second generation Hungries were discovered after newborns killed their infected mothers by burrowing out of the womb.

Despite a meagre budget of £4m, the casting of the production is exemplary, especially Gemma Arterton and Paddy Considine. 

With the zombie genre now bloated to the extreme, there is a now a confused blurring between inspiration and mimicry. Interestingly, Carey's prose shares similar themes and plot points to the PlayStation game 'The Last of Us', which was released the same year as his source short story Iphigenia In Aulis. Both feature a fungal plague, have a last stage of infection where people sprout spores, and the infected overwhelming rely on a senses (smell and sound). Most tellingly, they each feature a young girl who potentially has the cure. THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS also taps into our ever-expanding psyche of mortality, evolution of diseases and destruction by environment. Underneath a pounding soundtrack and photography filled with sickly greens and yellows, its heavy handed Greek subtexts are more than compensated for by rounded performances which make you believe in the slow transformation of command. It could be argued that the theatrical appearance of feral infants late on goes against the grain, and that the movie lasts just one scene too long to accommodate its misjudged coda.

"You look like hell"

QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)

Ukrainian model/actress Olga Kurylenko and Daniel Craig sizzle in the new Bond.

MARTIN Campbell's reboot of 007 - CASINO ROYALE in 2006 - not only redefined the series but gained international praise that the Bond films had never enjoyed even in their 60s heyday. Its direct sequel, Marc Forster's QUANTUM OF SOLACE, deeply divided fans and critics alike, and carries on the story minutes later, with the elusive Mr White (Jesper Christensen) now in the boot of Bond (Daniel Craig)'s Aston Martin. It's a high-speed, hyper-edited opening typical of the whole film; with a total running time of just over one hundred minutes, it moves with velocity across Italy, Haiti, Austria and Bolivia; but consider how many Bonds - including Campbell's film - that run out of steam as they drag themselves drunkenly across the two hour mark.

In Haiti, Bond observes Camille (Olga Kurylenko) - a Bolivian agent - and boyfriend Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a petulant eco-criminal busily finessing the oil and water reserves of South America for his own gain under the manipulation of his overlords, the Quantum organisation. At the inception of the cinematic Bond, successive villains were revealed to be minions to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of Spectre. But with the rights to Spectre currently under dispute, their place is taken by the mysterious Quantum, who can even infiltrate to the level of M (Judi Dench)'s private bodyguard. We learn nothing about them, yet there is a complication - hinted at in the novel of Thunderball - that Spectre is a subcontractor for the British Secret Service and the CIA. This notion that M's superiors and allies are as likely to back Quantum as oppose it is underpinned by world-weary spy Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), when he states, "When one's young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong. As one gets older, it becomes more difficult."

Gemma Arterton offers Daniel Craig his only sex scene.

Ian Fleming wrote about pain, fear, courage and endurance. That is what we see in Craig's Bond. Craig's engaging performance is the glue that holds the film together; he's even more intense in this revenge-based tale, traumatised almost into a dream state over the betrayal of Vesper in the last instalment, motivating a martini binge which seem to provide Bond with the recipe for dulling his feelings while still keeping his reflexes sharp. The closest to any tenderness displayed by Bond is in the scene where he hugs a dying Mathis before he disposes of his corpse in a dumpster (“he wouldn’t care.") Kurylenko also greatly impresses, not only with her smouldering beauty, but with the ability to hold an onscreen presence with Craig. Camille, having had her family raped and burnt alive by a deposed Bolivian dictator, also has her mind on retaliation; Kurylenko's scarred heroine is so fixed on murdering her enemy that she technically doesn’t even count as a Bond Girl. As the main villain, Polanskiesque Amairic is erudite, charming but ultimately a physical weakling, his smirk bringing a wickedly childish spite to this role. Greene is an interesting foil but underwritten, never really getting the chance to have the kind of show-stopping scene his predecessors have enjoyed, even within the climax set in an Adamesque Bolivian desert hotel.

The overall scheme by Greene may not be very compelling (water rights in Bolivia, anyone?), and there is no development arc to any of the characters, but QUANTUM OF SOLACE is so refreshing because it departs from many conventions: it is a Bond Film, rather than a Bond Movie. There is no introduction of "Bond, James Bond," no gadgets, cringe worthy quips or scenic padding, nor does he sleep with the leading lady (instead, there's a just-for-fun fling with MI6 emissary Ms Fields (Gemma Arterton), who enters in an impossible trenchcoat and exits in a surrealistic homage to Shirley Eaton). But QUANTUM OF SOLACE is cursed by the worst theme ever in the Bond canon - a first-ever duet - teaming Jack White and Alicia Keys for Another Way to Die. This makes Madonna's song for DIE ANOTHER DAY seem like Goldfinger, as the duo screech like banshees.