1,413 words, 7 minutes read time.
28 Years Later us the belated third instalment of a series that began with 28 Days Later in 2003 and continued with 28 Weeks Later in 2007. So, it’s been a long time coming, after long periods stuck in ‘production hell.’ But, in my opinion, it’s been well worth the wait, and easily surpasses both of its predecessors.
Whilst the reviews of professional critics of 28 Years have been largely positive, the online response of ‘ordinary’ cinema goers has been mixed. I’m guessing that the negativity has come largely from those who were expecting a run-of-the-mill Zombie story, perhaps along the lines of The Walking Dead or the films of George A Romero.
And it isn’t that.
Technically, of course, it’s not a ‘zombie’ film at all, as the antagonists have been turned into bestial killer sub-humans through being infected by an unspecified, originally worldwide virus rather than being creatures of the undead, though that’s an unimportant detail. It still belongs firmly within the zombie genre.
In spirit, it’s much closer to Days than the, in my opinion, much inferior Weeks,the latter of which was much closer to the kind of adventure ‘Zombie hunting’ movie that many seem to have been expecting this time around.
I suspect that this is in no small part due to the welcome return of Danny Boyle as the director, and Alex Garland as scriptwriter, both of whom were absent from the second film.
Both did a sterling job here, as did cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, and the Scottish punk-lo-fi hip-hop band Young Fathers who provided the music.
Set in Lindisfarne, though filmed in various northern British locations in a mere two months between May and July 2024, it utilised a complex array of iPhones filming from multiple angles in order to maximise Boyle’s editorial choices.
I’m no expert on the technicalities of movie making, but the technical choices made were obviously good ones, because the film is visually and sonically superb, as is Garland’s script, with excellent dialogue and the barest minimum of l exposition necessary to make the story intelligible to those with no prior knowledge of the 28 Universe.
The acting was also superb. I really can’t single out any of them for criticism, though the standout performances came from one fourteen-year-old in his first acting role, Alfie Williams as the twelve-year-old Spike, in his first acting role, and one veteran, Ralph Fiennes, as the enigmatic Doctor Kelson, showing his versatility after his recent, very different but equally excellent performance in Conclave.
I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but the premise of the movie is that the virus that turned the ‘Infected’ into savage murderous beasts has been eliminated on the continent of Europe but not in the UK, causing the latter to be effectively quarantined from the outside world, with its isolation enforced by European border guards armed, unlike the surviving non-infected Brits with modern weaponry.
This isolation has led the UK to revert to something resembling a medieval traditional society.
It is through this reversion to an earlier time that the main themes of the movie reveal themselves.
These themes include survivalism and self-sufficiency; the return of a form of natural and meritocratic hierarchy with people being assigned clearly defined specialist, and often gender-specific roles, like hunter, baker, seamstress etc; the clash between these old ways and the modern world, particularly when Spike meets the Norwegian border guard Eric (Edvin Ryding); the honouring of the dead through the character of Dr. Kelson and his ever-growing monument of skulls; the very different forms of love that exist in traditional societies between a mother and child and a father and child; the nurturing of new life amidst the apocalypse; and distrust of the world outside and of lone outsiders like Dr. Kelson.
But, at its heart, this is a good old-fashioned coming of age story, set in a society where young males once again have a clear route into manhood, in this case by crossing the causeway to the mainland to hunt the Infected with longbows, their main form weaponry, as Spike does with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor).
Later, he returns with his mother Isla (Jodie Comer). She is not infected, but is stricken with a physical and mentally debilitating illness, the nature of which we don’t learn until they meet the object of Spike’s quest, Doctor Kelson and the possibility of a cure for Isla.
The resolution of this quest gives us perhaps the film’s most moving and sequence.
Some have seen Britain’s isolation in the movie as perhaps a metaphor for Brexit, and that is there, I suppose, if you want it to be, whether for or against.
There is also, almost certainly the influence of the ‘covid period’ of recent, real-world’ memory in play.
But there are subtle, dream-like patriotic themes too: the fluttering of a lone flag of St George in the wind; the recitation of a section of Kipling’s poem Boots, remastered from a 1915 recording by an American actor, brief clips of the 1944 Laurance Oliver film version of Henry V, and an encounter with one of our most iconic monuments, The Angel of the North.
These sections worked very well for me, and helped lift the film well above the norm for the genre, though I can imagine some viewers might find them puzzling, or even pretentious.
By the standards of modern movies, the casting was refreshingly demographically accurate, with no concessions to the DEI culture which has been dominant throughout the entertainment industry in recent years.
There is action and gore, as is to be expected. A second outbreak of the virus has led some of the infected to evolve into what have become known as the Alpha’s, who are much larger and stronger than those seen in the earlier films, and with a higher level of intelligence, and others to devolve into reptilian-type creatures who seek prey and food through scurrying through the earth.
The battles between these two distinct branches of the infected and Spike, his father and others, was action enough for me, though perhaps not enough for those wishing to see a more traditional ‘Zombie’ movie.
There are criticisms to be made. Principally, would Britain really be left to its own devices by the outside world, with no attempt to rescue and evacuate those not yet infected? And, the film is set in 2031, precisely twenty-eight years after the first film was shot. This isn’t really a long time, in the scheme of things, and it’s reasonable to question whether society would have so rapidly reverted to an earlier time, to the point where modern technology has become not only unusable, but seems to have been largely forgotten.
As an example, Spike has no idea of what a mobile phone is, until he meets Erik. True, in 2003, mobiles were nowhere near as omnipresent as they are now, and they had not yet become ‘Smart’. But they were common enough, and surely there’d be a few lying around which adults could use to explain to their children what their use had once been?
I prefer to see anomalies such as this as perhaps due to the isolated nature of the village upon which the film is principally centred. They certainly didn’t undermine my enjoyment of the film.
Some have also criticised the ending. But that is to miss the point that it isn’t an ending. The sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Monument was shot back-to-back with this film, and is due to be released in January 2026. So, in reality, the conclusion, which has its own little, intriguing surprise, is a ‘To Be Continued’ rather than a ‘The End.’
Boyle hasn’t directed this second film, which may or may not affect its quality. But it is written by Garland, and he has said he has already planned out a third film, making Years the first part of a new trilogy, rather than simply continuation of Days and Weeks.
This third film has yet to be green-lit, and whether it is depends on the success of the current film and its already completed sequel.
But 28 Years Later seems to be doing well at the Box Office so far, and I suspect this will also be true of Bone Palace.
I’m certainly looking forward to seeing it, and I’d be surprised and disappointed if the series was to end there.
Reviewed by Anthony C Green.
Picture credit: By https://www.movieposters.com/products/28-years-later-mpw-148006, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78535102
