Danny Boyle’s new film on HBO Max will leave you breathless until the last scene

Films that, in one way or another, deal with man, his interaction with the environment and the most harmful consequences of this phenomenon — the apocalypse, in the worst case scenario — have already become the cliché par excellence of world cinema today. It seems that directors of all ideological colors, who profess the most varied faiths, with world views that are even inconsistent with the job from which they earn their living, are from time to time affected by a disbelief in life that results in work with a greater or lesser degree of eschatological content. Danny Boyle is one of the few filmmakers to be able to subvert the plethora of commonplaces that suffocate such plots, although it would be hasty to consider this an outdated fashion. Boyle is intimate with the end of the world, and in “Extermination: The Evolution” he proposes an audacious overview of the traumas that have been afflicting humanity and how the fear of the future grips us. The same elements that transformed the drama “Stalker” (1979), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), or the tragicomic “Dr. Fantastic” (1964), brought to the screen by Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), into classics not only of the genre or of cinema, but among all the artistic manifestations that raise the so-called necessary uncertainties regarding our destiny as a species. Together with screenwriter Alex Garland, responsible for “Annihilation” (2018) and “Ex-Machina: Artificial Instinct” (2014), two of the best productions to deal with the subject, the director once again puts his finger on the wound of the talent for self-destruction of homo sapiens sapiens, who makes a point of devastating everything he can, even trying his own poison.

23 years have passed, not 28, as suggested by the original title, but “Extermination: Evolution” retains the bloody and diabolical aura of “Extermination” (2002), without relying on nostalgic feelings. Now, Boyle admits that he intends to inaugurate a trilogy, to be continued with “Extermination: The Temple of Bones”, whose premiere is scheduled for 2026 by Nia DaCosta, highlighting, as it could not be otherwise, the vices of human relationships. In the opening, children from the Scottish Highlands watch an episode of “Teletubbies” at the moment when a horde of zombies invades the room they are in, making concrete the idea of ​​massacre that that atmosphere evokes. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, also in the credits of “Antichrist” (2009) and “Dogville” (2003), both by Lars von Trier, uses syrupy reds to highlight the carnage, using gore accurately. A boy runs to the parish, begs the priest for help, but in an instant he too is devoured, an old prophecy being fulfilled. Cunningly (or not so cunningly), Boyle weaves a metaphor that combines religion and geographic determinism, highlighting the nature of his epiphany.

Now, the rabies virus isn’t the worst. The story moves from London to a Northumbrian village, where the survivors live in isolation, perhaps waiting for a messiah. “Extermination: The Evolution” moves into an intimate drama as we observe Spike and Jamie, father and son, preparing for their first hunt, a rite of passage for the boys. Spike embodies the figure of the Christic martyr, caring for Isla, the sick mother, while trying to discover a way out of the constant floods that plague his people, also plagued by obese undead crawling along the ground. Boyle places a fantastic being as the driver of the radical transformations that shake the village, suddenly taken over not by water, but by a frightening fire. It is at this point that the performances of Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer converge, making way for Ralph Fiennes’ Doctor Kelson, in a late and yet fundamental appearance. In less than two hours, the monstrous in the human race emerges in all its power, and perhaps one day we will be able to believe that this admirable and disturbing film really is just entertainment.