Dennis Gansel combines shrewd direction with impressive technical savvy in “The Tank”, a gripping German war thriller that carves out its own World War II story while calling back to such classics as “Sahara”, “Das Boot”, and even “Apocalypse Now”. It’s a movie that repeatedly steers you towards believing it’s one thing, only to surprise you by taking itself in a number of unexpected directions.

Set in 1943, “The Tank” (originally titled “Der Tiger”) begins with a nerve-racking action sequence on a bridge over the Dnieper River in what is now Ukraine. As the German army is being pushed back by Russian forces, Lieutenant Gerkens (David Schütter) leads a five-man Tiger tank crew in defending the bridge. Shells detonate around them and fire rains down from above as the five anxious soldiers huddle in their cramped iron compartment. It’s a harrowing scene that gives us a glimpse of what Gansel has in store for us, both narratively and visually.

After the bridge battle, Gerkens is immediately given new orders. He and his crew are tasked with covertly locating and extracting the mysterious Lieutenant Colonel von Hardenburg, a German officer believed to be hiding in a bunker behind enemy lines. Little is known about the dangers they’ll face along the way. And even less is known about the man they are to retrieve.

Together with his driver, Helmut (Leonard Kunz), his machine gunner, Weller (Laurence Rupp), his radio operator, Keilig (Sebastian Urzendowsky), and his young reloader, Michel (Yoran Leicher), Gerken and his crew set out on their perilous mission. Their treacherous trek over No Man’s Land takes them across ominous fields, into quiet forests littered with dead bodies, and through the haunting remains of bombed out towns. These remnants of war emphasize its senselessness which ends up being one of the film’s central themes.

While there is no shortage of tension-soaked action, “The Tank” is as much interested in the psychological pressure as it is large-scale spectacle. Gansel crafts several nail-biting scenes that pit the crew against an array of threats, from land mines to Russian tank hunters. But the farther they travel, the more it begins to feel like a one-may mission. And the more they’re forced to reckon with feelings of guilt and complicity that they’ve attempted to bury throughout the war.

The balance between the wartime action and the psychological isn’t just captured by Gansel’s sharp direction. It’s also found in the stunning cinematography of Carlo Jelavic. He shrewdly oscillates between the cramped confines of the tank’s interior, affecting character closeups, and evocative landscapes, all vividly detailed, atmospheric, and suggestive. The sound design is equally effective in channeling the sheer sense of dread and the deeper emotional stakes. It’s a technical gem.

“The Tank” delivers all kinds of wartime thrills while avoiding the common action movie trappings. It doesn’t shy away from the atrocities of war nor does it exploit them. And while it conveys the bond of brotherhood among the crew, there isn’t an ounce of sentimentality in the storytelling. It’s as authentic as it is riveting. Overall, “The Tank” follows a unique narrative path marked by clever foreshadowing and intriguing moral reflections, finishing up with a bold final act that immediately calls for a second viewing.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

Last year’s “28 Years Later” was Danny Boyle’s return to the bleak and harrowing zombie hellscape he first introduced with 2002’s “28 Days Later”. That world was further explored in 2007’s “28 Weeks Later” and then again in 2025. In the third film, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland picked things up 28 years after the second outbreak of the Rage Virus, adding a host of new characters and just as many old references that fans of the apocalyptic horror franchise enjoyed.

My issues with “28 Years Later” wasn’t with its presentation. Boyle nailed the grim representation of a collapsed society and the horrors that exist within its remnants. Instead, the problems were with the lack of cohesion in the rushed final act. Even worse was its preposterous and tone-shattering finish that did more to hurt the film than to set the table for another one.

But some of the best sequels have made the movie that came before it better. Unfortunately that’s not the case with “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple”. Nia DaCosta takes over directing duties and she proves to have her finger firmly on the pulse of this dark and forbidding world. Unfortunately she’s repeatedly undermined by Garland’s script which keeps her handcuffed to two competing storylines that inevitably merge but not in the most satisfying of ways.

The previous film ends with 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) being ‘rescued’ by a pack of blonde wigged tracksuit satanists with Power Ranger agility. This film picks up their story as the group’s maniacal leader, Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) is forcing Spike to fight one of his lackeys to the death, all to earn a spot in his cult. Spike manages to survive and reluctantly joins their ranks. He quickly learns these are violently deranged people who gruesomely torture and “sacrifice” anyone they come across.

Elsewhere, we get more of the previous film’s most fascinating character, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a reclusive former doctor who had dedicated his life to memorializing the victims of the virus through his haunting Bone Temple. But now, when not jamming out to his Duran Duran records, he’s getting high on morphine with an area Alpha he’s named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). This is the same Alpha that was ripping heads off of people in the previous movie. Now he’s the doctor’s test subject and hangout buddy.

Garland’s script bounces back and forth between these two arcs, with neither feeling all that significant to the overall story. Spike’s parade with The Jimmy’s is especially confounding. They’re basically psychopathic killers driven by a blind allegiance to a clownish charlatan. And frankly, they aren’t all that interesting. Even worse, Spike often gets lost in cult’s chaos, leaving his coming-of-age drama stuck on the back burner.

As for DaCosta, she is given the unenviable task of turning Garland’s tuneless story into something meaningful and cohesive. One of her biggest challenges is sorting through the tonal confusion that plagues the majority of the film. Things can switch from grimly serious to comically absurd in a matter of seconds. DaCosta also has to find a way to keep us from asking some glaringly obvious questions. For example, what about the community of survivors on Lindisfarne? What about Spike’s father who was last seen painfully screaming his son’s name. Apparently he wasn’t anguished enough to go out searching.

“The Bone Temple” also seems to forget about the infected (minus Samson). They aren’t the same terrifying threats who kept us on the edges of our seats during the last film. Gone is the nerve-shredding tension of simply walking through the forest. Instead the infected mainly pop up whenever the story needs them to. And when they do, DaCosta simply can’t quite match Boyle’s intensely kinetic style of framing and shooting the action.

Thematically, “The Bone Temple” touches on inhumanity and the nature of evil while single-mindedly skewering the concept of faith. But like much in the movie, its themes are so confined that they don’t really go anywhere. Similarly, the two parallel stories feel restricted to different worlds until finally intersecting at a strangely opportune juncture. We’re left with the sense that very little in the film is moving towards a particular narrative goal. The tonal hopscotch, numbing sadism, and off-balance storytelling only make things worse.

VERDICT – 2 STARS