When the horror film "28 Days Later" premiered in 2002, audiences were seriously shook. It electrified the zombie horror sub-genre with a ravenous, punk attitude full of speed, violence, and mania. After "28 Days Later" came the 2007 sequel, "28 Weeks Later" continuing the zombie apocalypse universe. And now the next sequel, "28 Years Later," is the third entry in the "28" series of zombie domination.
This latest sequel is set on a tiny island off the coast of northern Scotland where a small community lives peacefully, away from the destruction of the rage virus on the quarantined mainland of the United Kingdom. People infected with this rage virus become bloodthirsty zombie animals who can run fast, scream loudly, and bite hard into frightened human flesh. Aaron Taylor-Johnson ("Nosferatu," 2024) plays a loving father who takes his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams, "A New Breed of Criminal," 2023) off the secure island to explore the deserted Scottish wilderness together and practice killing various zombies with their bows and arrows.
This expected rite of passage for Spike reveals the truth that other non-infected people are in the wilderness living on their own, one of whom might be a doctor. Spike starts getting ideas once he and his father return to their home and hatches a plan to sneak off the island with his mentally frail mother (Jodie Comer, "Killing Eve," 2018-2022), find this supposed doctor in the wilderness, and cure his mother's brain affliction (hopefully avoiding any zombies along the way).
"28 Years Later" is less of a horror thrill ride and more of a coming-of-age tale as a boy becomes a man by exploring a land of danger and facing his fears. (When any young boy is forced to grow up, he gets to decide what's worth fighting for.) There's still gross zombies, bloody attacks, and loud jump scares. Danny Boyle, who directed "28 Days Later," and Alex Garland, who wrote it, are back for this sequel as director and writer, and their frenetic style is on obvious display. The music is angry rock, and the editing is abrupt and jarring with lots of jump cuts and swift overhead shots of ominous meadows. This inventive camera work gives a blurting, enthusiastic urgency to this film that is scary in some moments and carefully tense in others.
I loved the first half of this film, because it has a similarly fearful and wild mood of the previous "28" films while also feeling emotionally grounded by Spike's naieve faith. Then the scariness and tension tapers off in the latter half in favor of brooding scenes on death, sacrifice, and letting go. This happens when Spike and his mother discover an abandoned train and then an almost religious sanctum of towers built of polished human bones. Much of this film's themes are the struggle between the savage and the sacred. Between the profane and the divine.
All this contemplating of death changes "28 Years Later" into a forlorn, quiet study on the passage of time, the pain of moving on, and the hope for redemption. Moments meant to be touching come off as morbid and melodramatic. So the latter half of this one left me thinking, "Absolutely not." The lore of the zombies is developed in strange directions trying too hard to be creative and resulting in scenes meant to be charged with terror and shock...but are not. Some of this "creativity" reminded me of the ridiculous zombie heist film, "Army of the Dead" (2021). Not a good sign.
The momentum and tone from the first half take a nosedive in the second half. And the ending simply confirms this whole film is a set-up for another sequel in this series. I did not enjoy this film, I'm sorry to say. The technical elements are dazzling, but the story ends up being a hugely lackluster disappointment.
