Horror, a documentary, or kids, there’s only good choices at the movies this weekend

There are only good choices at the cineplex this weekend. A pair of adolescent heroes – one battling a rage virus, the other bargaining with goofy aliens – and a deaf heroine who’s triumphed in an industry that’s never known what to make of her. What’s not to like?

28 Years Later

The Rage Virus that escaped from a bioweapons lab in 28 Days Later, and seemed to have escaped the British Isles in 28 Weeks Later has now been contained. Alas, it’s been contained to the British Isles, meaning NATO has warships patrolling the coast, and Britain’s remaining uninfected residents have essentially been left for dead. Spike (Alfie Williams), a lad of 12, has grown up on an island compound separated from the English mainland by a causeway that is passable only at low tide. Residents of the compound must make occasional forays into infected territory for food and fuel, armed only with bows and arrows to defend against raging naked flesh-eaters. Spike’s a decent archer, and on his first trek to the mainland, he makes his first kill. He also learns something that will bring him back on an odyssey that is both terrifying and surprisingly sweet. Jodie Comer’s addled as Spike’s sickly mom, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson is randy as his dad. Ralph Fiennes is on hand as a doctor who’s got a witchy Macbeth thing going after enduring almost three decades of rage-induced sound and fury. And original director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland are back to make sure this third episode of their auteur-horror franchise provides scares and scenery in the right proportions to whet appetites for the rest of an already-planned trilogy. Consider mine whetted.

Elio

Pixar’s latest excursion to infinity and beyond centers on Elio, an initially insecure 11-year-old orphan (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), who’s so lonely he thinks his only route to happiness is being abducted by aliens. When a passing spaceship filled with otherworldly critters – including a pink manta ray, a pear-shaped granite beetle, an orb-burping entity, and a liquid supercomputer — receives his ham radio greeting, it beams him up to its “communiverse.” He meets a new pal – Glordon (Remy Edgerly), the slug-like son of a bloodthirsty Hylurgian warlord — and has to learn the art of the deal (“start from a position of power”) to negotiate with Glordon’s implacable but ultimately loving dad. Prettily animated in bright pastels and voiced amusingly, the story serves a sweetly conventional set of lessons about friendship, standing up for yourself, and accepting love from allies who share your sensibilities — say, a well-meaning aunt (Zoe Saldana) who happens to be an astronaut-candidate.

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore

At the outset of this compelling documentary, a scarlet-gowned Marlee Matlin arrives at the 2022 Oscars as history’s sole deaf Oscar winner. She’s about to be, as the title has it, “not alone anymore” when her CODA co-star Troy Kotsur wins Best Supporting Actor. It’s pretty clearly a moment of joy for a true pioneer. Then, deaf documentarian Shoshannah Stern marshals a wealth of archival material – from home movies, to Matlin’s screen test for Children of a Lesser God, to screen shots of the bruises her abusive lover and costar William Hurt left on her body – to tell the story of the psychic bruises she suffered along her journey. The trauma left by guilt-ridden parents, dismissive journalists, and a lifetime of debilitating “language deprivation.” With sensitivity to Matlin’s primary language, American Sign Language, Stern lays out the controversies surrounding her Oscars speech, her campaign for closed-captioning, and her anointing of a deaf president for Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf that had always been led by hearing administrators. The result is an intimate portrait of a deaf artist who led a 35-year crusade for equity and inclusion in an industry that’s never quite known how to deal with her.