this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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Sure, I don't think it's necessarily reasonable for the average viewer to know much about benzene. Which makes it all the more odd that the movie contrives a situation entirely dependent on a character knowing a lot about benzene for no reason.
Erik's friend tried to shoot the Alpha and his gun jammed. Erik's gun was perfectly fine. Basically the stars aligned to make sure none of the Alphas in the movie ever had to deal with the automatic weapons introduced by the movie.
No, that's an entirely unbelievable way for Isla to behave. She has a husband and life outside the romp she's been tricked by her son to go on, much of which she seemed to enjoy. That's why they felt they had to contrive a line where the doctor mysteriously knows she has very little time left.
Mark my words, when the sequel to this movie comes out next year it'll turn out that those are the same kids and they're infected but, because of special mutations, or because of something mysterious done by Jimmy, they're "good" infected. I'm sorry, it's just that dumb.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here? That Erik knows that the fumes are benzene? Like, whatever the details are it was a pretty straightforward scene to inject some action into the movie, it's not like it was a major plot point. I admit it was the most suspension of disbelief scene in how it all played out, but it isn't a major plot hole.
He couldn't initially shoot at the alpha because it was in close proximity to his squad mate that it was attacking. And then he saw a horrific sight completely out of the realm of normal human experience and he froze in terror and then fled. None of this stands out as beyond the reasonable realms of plausibility.
She's in pain every day. Her relationship with her husband and son is completely dysfunctional due to her confused spells and violent outbursts towards them. Her illness has actively ruined those relationships and she ends up saying horrible things to the people she loves because of it. She has cancerous growths spread all through her body, I think that's a pretty reasonable indicator that she doesn't have long to live.
You're literally making up things to be mad about. You've got a real axe to grind here and I'm not sure why. It's fine if you didn't like the movie for whatever reason but none of your arguments here hold water.
I'm elaborating on critiques of the movie you asked for elaboration on, though the real issue seems to be that you're just unwilling not to consistently give the movie the benefit of the doubt. Overall I thought it was fine, though the parts of it that weren't good specifically compare poorly to the earlier entries in the series.
The gas station scene is heavily contrived to provide an older-brother or father figure, offering viewers comfort regarding the main character's situation given Spike's dad wasn't around. The guy is killed shortly afterwards as Ralph Fiennes' character takes over that role instead. This is not only a big tonal departure from the previous movies, but also within the movie itself. What is this, an action, adventure, horror, buddy, sci fi, drama, comedy movie? It is all of them at different parts and mostly only the action is done well (though even then, the bullet time shots - wtf?). Erik's introduction to the audience and main characters are the clearest examples of this and that's why those scenes specifically are relevant to my criticism.
Isla's death does a big disservice to the concept of voluntary assisted dying and significantly cheapens her character arc IMO. For a large part of the movie, her illness just isn't relevant to what she's doing.
Are you saying it isn't heavily implied those are the same kids? What other purpose does the group of kids at the start serve? Why do they all have long blonde hair? Why is their zombie massacre scored by a metal version of the Teletubbies?
When movie magic stops being magic and starts being transparently a plot device, or omission in service of serialisation, it's bad. This has nothing to do with whether I'm willing to suspend disbelief - example: Ralph Fiennes surviving on the mainland for decades because he paints himself with iodine - fine. Isla wandering into the distance to be killed by a morphine blowdart which seconds earlier had only served to make Spike a little woozy - dumb.
I actually just found a quote from Boyle specifically saying that Jimmy's gang are like "a replacement for the family he loses at the beginning", which is how I originally interpreted that scene.