28 Years Later: Film Review
It’s been 23 years since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland brought us the 2002 post-apocalyptic horror 28 Days Later, and now the band are back together for 28 Years Later, the beginning of a planned trilogy.
As the title suggests, the film is set 28 years after the outbreak of the Rage Virus, which effectively turns people into zombies. It tells the story of a 12-year-old boy, Spike (Alfie Williams), who lives on Lindisfarne, an island that can only be accessed by a single, heavily-guarded causeway at low tide. He has lived a relatively normal existence away from the infected on the Great Britain mainland, a quarantine zone that nobody can leave.
The film is essentially a tale of two halves, plus an epilogue/teaser. The first half follows Spike and his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as Spike goes onto the mainland for the first time, armed with a bow and arrow, to kill his first infected. This is where you see most of the horrifying moments, from visceral kills (complete with a brief freeze frame) to thrilling chases and disgusting new zombies. It also moves at a breakneck pace and features a montage of archival footage of soldiers marching and firing arrows to hammer home the social commentary.
The second half is slower and more impactful emotionally, as it depicts Spike secretly taking his sick mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), to the mainland to visit Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) to find out what is wrong with her. This portion is heartfelt and moving and packs more of an emotional punch than I ever expected from a zombie film. Comer is excellent here, and Williams shows great promise as a young performer, but Fiennes totally steals the show as the eccentric iodine-covered doctor.
However, the script is quite dodgy in places, the CGI is OK at best, and the archival footage didn’t work for me. Plus, the decision to shoot on iPhones yields inconsistent results as some scenes are gloriously high-res and others are incredibly grainy. It is surprisingly funny at times, but I wasn’t always sure if the laughs were intentional.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the teaser for the next film, which has already been filmed with director Nia DaCosta. Without going into spoiler territory, let’s just say it’s a bonkers curveball that made me laugh in disbelief. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It’s so tonally different from this outing – will it be a horror comedy?! I left the cinema scratching my head, wondering how it was going to work. I guess we’ll find out next year!
28 Days Later was a groundbreaking movie that popularised the zombie genre in the early 2000s. It can be tricky revisiting such a defining piece of genre cinema, so hats off to Boyle and Garland for trying something new, even if the result is a mixed bag.
In cinemas from Thursday 19th June
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