Over the past seven days, I’ve sat through three films — about zombies, robots, and lost boys. Here are my thoughts:

‘SOME NIGHTS I FEEL LIKE WALKING’

Style over substance best describes the queer humanist drama Some Nights I Feel Like Walking, an international co-production written and directed by Petersen Vargas. It had a limited screening during QCinema’s Rainbow Pride Film Festival on 26 and 27 June.

The film tries too hard to be arthouse, edgy festival fare. But its slow-burn approach is neither rich nor tension-filled, and it lacks emotional weight. It’s just flat and dragging.

The story follows young gay hustlers — Uno (Jomari Angeles), Bay (Argel Saycon), Rush (Tommy Alejandrino) and Ge (Gold Aceron) — who sell their bodies to survive. Yet its themes of economic desperation, systemic marginalization and queer alienation are undermined by its aesthetic choices.

Shot with striking, dreamy visuals that render even the seediest parts of Manila beautiful, the film creates dissonance with its themes. The result feels less like a critique and more like a sensualized gaze, and the film seems unsure whether it wants to bear witness or seduce.

Characterization is paper-thin. The dialogue, dominated by the incessant use of “kuys” (short for kuya), quickly grows irritating and only highlights how underwritten these characters are.

After several sexual encounters with clients, an incident occurs that mildly piques interest, but also inadvertently and comically recalls the 1989 comedy Weekend at Bernie’s. Also, a duffel bag the boys carry on a road trip seems light, given what’s inside.

The “heart” of the film is the budding romance between Uno and a mysterious teen named Zion (Miguel Odron), which gestures toward intimacy and longing, but it’s drowned in hazy moodiness.

There are memorable elements. One is the act of burning, used as self-inflicted pain to cope with inner torment. Another is a dream sequence. And then there’s an exquisite long take that plays like a Mad Hatter tea party, a genuine sensory treat, though ultimately undone by a predictable ending.

A closing image — a weeping embrace — evokes Roma (2018). I’m not saying it copied Alfonso Cuarón’s scene, but that moment in Roma is so iconic that seeing something similar here drains it of emotional payoff.

Some Nights I Feel Like Walking ultimately feels like an exercise in craft rather than a fully realized work. There’s potential here for something raw, moving, urgent, but the film’s self-conscious stylization diminishes whatever substance it might have had.

(2 out of 5 stars)

‘28 YEARS LATER’

If you haven’t seen 28 Days Later (2002) or 28 Weeks Later (2007), don’t worry. 28 Years Later stands on its own and serves as the first installment in a planned new trilogy.

Alex Garland and Danny Boyle — the original screenwriter and director — reunite for this post-apocalyptic zombie thriller that, ironically, lacks thrills. Boyle, who shot the original on a prosumer DV camera, teams up with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to achieve a similar raw, gritty texture by using an iPhone 15.

The widescreen-format film bears Boyle’s signature style: hyper-stylized sequences, skewed angles and jump cuts. Here, he also inserts archival footage of the Battle of Agincourt, medieval imagery and a heavy dose of indie music.

Since this is the trilogy’s first entry, the story is mostly setup. We follow 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), who trains with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to kill the “infected” — essentially, zombies.

There are some awesome visuals, including a commune-slash-fortified settlement where the father and son live with other survivors. A narrow causeway connects it to the mainland, where the infected roam. It’s all a visual treat — but it doesn’t make up for the lack of tension and emotional depth.

Things take a sappy turn when Spike brings his mysteriously ill mother Isla (Jodie Comer) to the mainland, where Ralph Fiennes enters the picture. But since the mother-son bond is rushed, this subplot fails to emotionally connect.

If you’re easily startled, this film might do the trick. Otherwise, it’s only worth watching if you’re into Boyle’s visual style.

(2.5 out of 5 stars)

‘M3GAN 2.0’

The sequel to the 2022 sci-fi horror hit, M3GAN 2.0 brings back its sassy killer doll (voiced by Jenna Davis), this time up against a more advanced humanoid military robot named AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno).

This semi-campy thriller is pure popcorn entertainment: light, fun and peppered with laugh-out-loud moments. The plot is formulaic, occasionally recalling Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but it works because the film knows exactly what it is and doesn’t pretend to be more.

It centers on artificial intelligence, and the tone leans more toward comedy than suspense, thanks to a cheeky, clever script. Gemma (Allison Williams), Cady (Violet McGraw) and their crew are once again out to save the world, with M3GAN now cast in a full-blown superhero role.

It follows familiar superhero beats and offers few surprises, but it’s an entertaining enough way to kill time at the movies.

(3 out of 5 stars)