It’s easy to come away from “28 Years Later” disappointed and underwhelmed, especially if you hold the previous entries in high regard or watched them recently. To be fair, no one really holds “28 Weeks Later” in any regard, a massive downgrade from the unassailable masterpiece that is “28 Days Later.” In anticipation for this film – arriving some 23 years after the original – I rewatched both right before seeing “28 Years Later” for the first time. This proved to be a major disservice, entering with a certain set of expectations that simply aren’t what this particular film is concerned with.
After a very lively discussion (watch here) with some colleagues, I felt conflicted about my initial takeaways. So much so that I decided to return to the theater and watch “28 Years Later” again. This proved to be the right move, because both watches couldn’t be more different, the latter recognizing the deeply sentimental undertones, humanity at its core and contemporary commentary simmering beneath the surface.
Originally, I felt Alex Garland‘s script was an unmitigated disaster, bursting with ideas that never felt complete or balanced. I thought only through the sheer will and competency of Danny Boyle‘s direction paired with incredible performances from its cast did “28 Years Later” work as a film in any capacity. But that was watching it through the lens of the original rather than through the lens of the passing of time; 28 years later genuinely means that time has past both onscreen and the world around us and trying to put a COVID coded square into a post 9/11 circle is the wrong approach. Marketed as a pulse-pounding, action-packed race for survival when in reality, it is a film about life, death, love, family, and the relentless existence of mundanity that continues on even in the apocalypse. It’s more of a family drama than a zombie flick, a coming of age story rather than a survivalist tale. It is wrapped in a thematic blanket that life goes on even when death surrounds us, and once you begin to read that text “28 Years Later” becomes a wholly different film.
Directed by Boyle and written by Garland in their first collaboration since the original, “28 Years Later” stars Alfie Williams as Spike, a young boy raised on an isolated Island off the coast of mainland Britain. The rage virus has been eradicated in Continental Europe, leaving the whole of the British Isles under quarantine and the survivors left to fend for themselves. Spike lives in the tight knit community of Lindisfarne, a small island connected to the mainland by a causeway that is only walkable during low tide. As a right of passage, Spike and his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) travel to the mainland to get him his first kill, where they encounter a range of infected and barely make it back to the island alive. Spike becomes disillusioned with his father’s recounting of events, and upon hearing of a doctor still alive on the mainland, he decides to take his sick, confused mother Isla (Jodie Comer) to this mysterious doctor in hopes to find a cure. He discovers that the world is not what he thought it was and is forced to grow up fast and wrestle with the realities of life and death. It also stars Jack O’Connell, Ralph Fiennes, and Edvin Ryding.
The true discovery here is Williams, a newcomer who is completely tapped into the emotional core of a young boy becoming a man in a world filled with terrors and death he doesn’t understand. It always helps to be paired with Taylor-Johnson, who continues his streak of being excellent in horror, and Comer who just might be the new onscreen GOAT. “28 Years Later” is really powered by these three and their family dynamics that shift as, despite how hard some of them try to keep things the same, change around them. Again, at first glance I thought the transition from journey to journey was messy and disconnected, but once you settle into the world through Spike’s eyes, you begin to see the distinct 3 act arc he has as he grows from naive boy to capable man. Of course, Fiennes is phenomenal, and his entrance and impact on the story got me a little emotional on a first watch, then bursting with uncontrollable tears on a rewatch. I’m still out on some of the cliche contrivances that serve as catalysts for events, but it imbues enough humanity into each of its characters that it can be forgiven for most of them.
Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography is as breathtaking as ever. The gorgeous, lush landscapes of greens and desolate roads often covered in moonlight and fire embers are simply stunning. Mantle – who has worked with Boyle on 6 previous films including “28 Days Later,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Trance” (which I love I don’t care who knows) – understands Boyle’s surrealist and manically edited visual storytelling style, and the “filmed on an iPhone 15 Pro” never feels like a gimmick. There are some sequences and wide shots that I have never seen onscreen before, and it’s easy to get swept away in the magic of serene yet haunting atmosphere.
There’s a chase scene on the causeway that just may be some of the most visually arresting sequence I’ve seen all year, a close second to the “I Lied to You” sequence from “Sinners.” There’s a beautiful and sometimes messy poetry that work to tell a deeper, more personal narrative, and the combination of Boyle, Garland, and Mantle creates genre mashing movie magic.
“28 Years Later” is not a zombie movie, at least not in the traditional sense. Make no mistake: this film is horrifically violent and soaked in blood, with some gnarly, grisly imagery sure to satiate even the most bloodthirsty horror fans. But beneath that it is so unapologetically COVID coded, with both Boyle and Garland mourning the loss of millions of people who died and still reeling from the pandemic fallout, and the infected are secondary to those left to live out their lives. It’s a lesson we learned the hard way: there is no discharge in the war, and in both war and apocalypse, life goes on.
Boyle and Garland are clearly fascinated and interested in the broader examination that everyone died around them and we all still had to go to work. And they are most certainly critical of Brexit and British isolationism, a theme that constantly appears throughout in its imagery on and off the secluded island. These men want us to remember death but also remember to love and hold dear the cycle of life in subversive, emotionally resonate ways.
On its surface, “28 Years Later” is easy to dismiss, admired for its visuals and performances but the slow burn and lack of focus in what should be a survivalist zombie movie leaves you wanting and disappointed. But if you’re willing to take it for what is and not what you want it to be, you’ll discover a dense, textually rich, thematically challenging, emotionally beautiful film that speaks to the best and worst of humanity in some profound ways. There’s just so much to unpack and I’ve only scratched the surface here, with some things requiring spoilers that I won’t go into in this review. Hell, we didn’t even talk about the banger trailer use of Rudyard Kipling “Boots” poem hauntingly read by Taylor Holmes and how masterfully it’s used in the film. And I can’t even talk about the ending, that hits like a sledgehammer swinging so far out of left field you’ll think the projectionist switched over to a different film entirely.
“28 Years Later” requires some patience and perspective, but if you’re willing to let it take you and not imprint your own experiences of the previous films, you’ll be rewarded with something special. On my first watch, it received a 2.5-3 stars, the higher end simply for its impeccable craft. But on a rewatch, I’m compelled to raise it significantly. It is so much better than I thought, and a film I will be thinking about for a very long time.
Momento mori, memento amori.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
“28 Years Later” is now playing in theaters. You can watch the trailer below.
