Following its predecessor  “28 Years Later” released six months ago, “The Bone Temple is asserting that in order to survive the post-apocalypse you must be willing to abandon your tribe. Whether you are in a village, among the infected, or in a satanic cult the only ones that not just survive but advance are able to see beyond the perceptions of reality and move out of the comfort of their chosen group.  It’s not the notion of taking a risk to leave, it is the notion to not to be so…..rigid and confined in life. The film is saying that It takes more than just to be able to fight and have grit to live in post-apocalypse.  It takes the ability to understand. Motive drives all stories but to understand the motives is in fact the greatest tool. “Bone Temple” is diving deep into those themes. The question of faith, and logic are all played out in almost poetic motion. A motion that constantly gets interrupted by a comic book villain, who leads a brutal cult named Jimmy. The result is a clash, not a blend of pure great cinema and campy seventies horror with an ending that seems to be paper clip added and not earned.

Good stories need good villains and “Bone Temple” went with a cliche of a psychopathic satanic cult leader leading the rampage of death and malice in his wake all while doing his best Ozzy Osbourne/Jimmy Saville hybrid imposternation in a black jumpsuit. An arch that is so cartoonish it subtracts the tranquility that is being provided with Ralph Fiennes being the isolated doctor trying to find a cure for the infection.  There are great moments of Fiennes with the infected human he named “Samson” that will remind many film lovers of Terrance Malick’s work. There is a great film in there, somewhere, a touching, thoughtful, impactful film and gets taken away with some odd choices. We have a fight to the death in an empty pool (why there?) We have loads of exposition dumps by every antagonist in the film even though we know their motivations. And some uneven editing choices of multiple cuts that teeter on redundant to unnecessary back-and-forth cuts takes the flow out of the film.

There are amazing characters in this, Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Ian Kelson is beyond fascinating and that goes for the infected character “Samson” as well. That is what should have been the main focus. Samson’s turn is where the story is most compelling and for a film to invest some much time on how the theme of understanding characters is doesn’t take the time to explain the third act of Dr. Kelson’s motivations. A few minutes to just explain that maybe he did it out of loneliness, his greatest struggle would have made the film have a greater impact than being something goes awash.  With “28 Years Laters” and “28 Years Later: Bone Temple” it shows no matter how polished and fantastic the technical aspect of a film is it can hide a rough sketch of a script.  5.5/10