28 Years Later

 

This review may contain spoilers!

28 Years Later is the third film in the 28 Days Later franchise, and as the title suggests, takes us 28 years after the outbreak. In this feature, Spike is due for the rite of passage his island village partakes in. He and his father, Jamie, venture out onto the mainland to survive six hours alone surrounded by the zombie hordes.

The zombie genre is a realm that hasn't produced as many major hits on the big screen in a while. I certainly haven't been this entertained by a zombie feature since the second Zombieland graced our screens. The thing worth getting excited about for 28 Years Later is the reunion of the creative team; seeing the radical storytelling of Alex Garland partnered with the filmmaking expertise of Danny Boyle is a treat. It's what made 28 Days Later such a timeless gem for the genre. In this film, for nearly the entire first half, we get some of the best onscreen tension I have seen all year. Watching Spike and Jamie stagger through this decaying world is terrifying; any scene can tilt into danger, and even on the cusp of their village gate, they are faced with a spine-chilling threat to their mortality. It's a nice way to tell the audience from the very beginning that the stakes haven't gone away, they're still high, and if anything, the world for our characters is more dangerous than ever. So when the film decides to take a heel turn and have Spike venture out into the world with his ailing mother in the back half, you know this film is prepared to surprise you. The difference is quite worthwhile watching. Spike depends on his father when they leave, but he visually learns what he needs to survive. When he ventures out with his mother, he becomes the person leading them through the wilderness, and he has to grow in moments of danger. The second act was revelatory and held moments of surprising beauty. The Momento Mori tribute to the dead is actually quite a remarkably poignant point in the script. It is a setting in which Spike changes the most; he lets go of his boyhood while still holding on to the love that made him shine out from the others. This film is a beautiful character arc for Spike, and I felt like he really saw a complete journey as a character.

Danny Boyle is a master behind the camera, and there is no point in this film where that was put into doubt. The visuals on display here are incredible and make this world feel so expansive, the way we had these massive wides that showed the scale of the decaying world. I also really liked how shaky and frantic the action sequences got; it was nice that the camerawork didn't feel polished and only served to heighten the tension. The editing is going to be fun for some and awful for others, and at first, I thought it was janky. But the more the film went along, I really got onboard with the purpose of the editing, the tension of the kill and the way a scene was cut perfectly to the beat of the narrative. The soundtrack has a few numbers that will get under your skin, and the working of Rudyard Kipling's 'Boots' poem into the mix really heightens that transition into the world of the dead. I also found the score to be a terrifying piece that only really helped to ramp up those moments where I had my theatre chair armrests in a vice-like grip.

Alfie Williams, who played Spike, is an incredible young protagonist who really makes his mark on this series; Williams' progression from scared child to defiant explorer protecting his mother made this movie at every turn. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Jamie, has found himself a tough apocalypse hunter role that he absolutely dominates in; how he plays a Dad who often fails his son is something I was very impressed by. Christopher Fulford, who played Sam, is another caring communal figure whom I enjoyed; Fulford also lends himself to being a bit of a storyteller in this role, which worked. Jodie Comer, who played Isla, is a tragic character performed beautifully; Comer's bouts of sickness worked just as wonderfully as the moments where she played heartbreaking clarity. Edvin Ryding, who played Erik, is a surprise addition in the back half, but he does good work; Ryding works the angle of being a complete outsider to this zombie world very well.

However, the best performance came from Ralph Fiennes, who played Dr. Kelson. I found the moment Fiennes appeared onscreen, it was clear we had a performer who was on a whole other level. Fiennes knows how to work the material he is given, when to have some levity with it or when to play it like a master. This is a film that offers him the opportunity to do both. By the time Fiennes first appears, his role has already had a lot of mystique built up around him. So to see this more casual character dressed in terrifying apparel was quite the about-face. Dr. Kelson is someone who has held to his humanity within the end of the world; he can joke with good humour. Fiennes is careful to not present Kelson as mad; he has eccentricities, but he feels fully capable. The way he describes the Momento Mori monument his character has been building is a real moment of beauty in the script that can only have been performed with someone capable of such poetry. In Isla's death scene, Fiennes is a remorseful participant. A true Ferryman. I think the gentle nature of this transition to death is owed greatly to Fiennes' portrayal of the moment. A man who can really craft moving moments in the projects he is in.

I found 28 Years Later to be excellent, but it had a few off-kilter moments, particularly in the second half. When the Swedish soldiers showed up with their guns and heavy-handed comic relief, I felt like the story lost itself to something else for a moment. When it was time for Ilsa to pass on, the whole premise of her flesh being melted off and her skull being handed back to her waiting son would have played for comedy if the acting wasn't behind that moment. The most egregious one was the ending with the introduction of the Jimmys; it was an oddball tonal shift that completely decimated my view of this film. I felt it was a sequel sting that did nothing for the feature and left me less excited for a potential sequel. The other aspect of the film I really didn't like was the zombie pregnancy. It was a perturbing, almost fetish-fueled moment that didn't really add a lot to the story. I've seen this done in Army of the Dead too, and it's an element of the zombie genre I really don't care for at all.

Jack O'Connell, who played Sir Jimmy Crystal, struts into the movie and immediately soured the whole thing; O'Connell's ability to just generate some of the most grating characters in 2025 needs to be studied.

A few narrative oddities aren't enough to undermine one of the more viscerally creative and constructed zombie films of the past few years. I would give 28 Years Later a 7.5/10