2025 | rated R | starring Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes |directed by Danny Boyle | 1 hr 55 mins | 3 1/2 out of 5 stars |
2025 Sequelfest # 4
The most anticipated movie of the year for myself and a lot of people, the long rumored 28 Years Later comes along nearly 28 years after Danny Boyle’s original rage-virus film re-invented the modern zombie movie. The cast is impeccable with Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes at the helm and with Boyle and original writer Alex Garland back, what could go wrong – except maybe Boyle and Garland stepping in their own way? That’s, kind of, what happens with 28 Years Later, an entertaining zombie movie with some terrific moments also full of oddball decisions that ultimately would rather serve as a franchise reboot than its own beautiful thing.
28 years after the rage virus has forced the UK island into a quarantine while the rest of the world lived on, the people living there have survived in a medieval state. We follow young Spike (Alfie William), the son to Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Isla (Jodie Comer), who having now turned 12 must take part in an island ritual that has him leaving the safety of the community with his father and traveling to the mainland to get his first zombie kill. During the trip, Spike learns of a doctor on the mainland who might be able to cure his bed-ridden mother and sets off on a stealth mission to find him and save her.
There is a lot to like about the first half of 28 Years Later and everything I liked about it Boyle and Garland weren’t interested in exploring. I wanted to stay in this community a bit and learn how it works, more about this ritual and how previous attempts have gone. Delve more into this family dynamic. Jamie seems to be a good father to his son, but also very concerned with what the community things of him. How does their marriage work? in this world, and very specific to a plot point, how does monogamy still work when we are trying to create a thriving population out of so few? I loved the detail of the causeway that turns the community into an island at high tide. There are several sequences in this first act with harrowing zombie action. We see how the zombies have evolved, in some cases into bloated creatures forced to eat worms and in others, Alphas who command a pack, rip heads off spines like the Predator and impregnate other zombies to make zombie babies.
Years Later gets wackier the more it goes, turning from that down-to-Earth What-would-you-do? zombie scenario of 28 Days and Weeks Later into a movie that often seems to crib from Zach Snyder’s already not-so-original Army of the Dead. Pregnant zombies, giant dongs, skull pyramids. It’s stuff that was more fitting in Snyder’s B-movie, more fun, schlockfest, but 28 Years Later is not that kind of zombie franchise. It’s the genre elevated into art, which Boyle and Garland then re-attempt to do in the third act. I liked it, by itself, there are moments in the film’s 3rd act that are quite visually and thematically beautiful. At the same time, we’re on our 3rd of 4 rapid tonal switch in the last 90 minutes and could be fitted for a neck brace.
That’s the big problem with 28 Years Later, it feels like it’s 3 or 4 movies, all of which are compelling by themselves, that are crammed into one and don’t quite flow together. Garland and Boyle cram all their ideas in here and trip over themselves trying to make them fit together. From minute to minute, I would say it works very well. Some of the action scenes are terrific, particularly the way Garland and Boyle turn the causeway, the rising tide and a rampaging Alpha into a nail-biting action scene set against the northern lights. It’s the highlight of the film. It’s not just the best scene of the movie; it’s probably going to be one of the stand-out action set pieces of the year. It’s terrific. And that goes to my frustration with this movie as a whole. Parts of it are so goddamn good it makes the other decisions all the more baffling. For example, Jamie is shown to be a devoted father, but when Spike and his mother flee the community, he doesn’t go after them. Not only would this seem to be in character, but it would provide a through line in the story and connect it together. As Taylor-Johnson disappears from the film it turns Spike’s journey into more of an anthology.
Spoiler: I have a theory of why this character doesn’t appear in the third act. If he did, he would argue to keep his wife alive and that would go against the film’s pro-British government euthanasia message. That we can’t have. This zombie apocalypse has been sponsored by the NHS – when you absolutely, positively need to drown your mother to death.
End Spoiler.
28 Years Later isn’t as bad as the disappointed click-farmers on the internet say it is, because it’s their job to trash every new movie. It’s also not as solid as it should have been. The film’s real killshot comes in the final 5 minutes in which it sets up a sequel in the most head-scratching way imaginable, sending the audience out on a note that turns this solemn movie about manhood, death and acceptance into something between Mad Max, Power Rangers and Eurotrip.
With studios out of ideas, they’re willing to commit more money and freedom to get the original creatives of a beloved series back for another entry. Boyle and Garland probably got a dump truck of money and a promise to be left alone that few could resist. The result is a distinct vision of theirs for sure. One that doesn’t want to rehash the original and takes some big swings. In an age where everything is beaten into easily digestible fast food, that’s admirable. But I also have to admit some of those swings go right into the dirt. 28 Years Later is the kind of divisive movie we’ll need time to digest and put aside expectations. It’s the kind of wacky work that might gain a huge cult following in the future – or might be seen as Boyle’s folly. Time is going to tell on this one.