Cast: Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell
Genre: Zombie Horror, Horror, Thriller
Director:Â Danny Boyle
In Irish Cinemas: 20th June 2025
28 Years Later: A Return to Rage, Evolution, and Overreach
Nearly three decades have passed since the Rage Virus breached the confines of a British bioweapons facility, plunging the nation into a nightmare of blood-soaked chaos. Despite the passage of time, the virus continues to fester in the shadows of a Britain still locked under a merciless quarantine. Yet, amidst the devastation, small communities have adapted—some even found ways to thrive. One such group lives on a secluded island off the Northumberland coast, linked to the mainland by a single, fortified causeway. Here, life has resumed in fragile balance. But when one person ventures beyond the island on a mission into the infected mainland, he uncovers a world irrevocably changed, where evolution has touched not only the infected but also the survivors.
Back in 2002, the zombie genre was revitalised by a gritty British film that refused to follow convention. 28 Days Later—shot on Mini-DV camcorders, often during stolen moments on the empty streets of early-morning London—brought a visceral new energy to the genre. It ignored tropes, embraced chaos, and redefined what a post-apocalyptic horror film could be. Now, over two decades later, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland reunite to revisit their dystopian Britain in 28 Days Later, a sequel that both honours the franchise’s legacy and struggles under the weight of its ambition.
The film opens with a stark, nostalgic vignette: a group of children watches Teletubbies in a living room bathed in morning light, while faint screams echo in the distance—their parents dying offscreen, one by one. It’s a chilling return to the atmosphere of the original, dripping with dread and unpredictability. The infected are back, blood-spewing and relentless. But then, something unsettlingly new appears: a subtle, terrifying reaction from a non-infected character that signals this world has changed in unexpected ways.
We leap forward to the present, 28 years after the initial outbreak—the setting: Holy Island. Here, we meet Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a hardened survivor, his wide-eyed 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams), and Jamie’s mother Isla (Jodie Comer), who is suffering from a mysterious and deteriorating illness. Life on the island appears idyllic, almost utopian. It’s insulated, productive, and community-driven. Yet under its surface lies a deeply gendered societal structure, where men hunt and patrol while women care for the home. This theme is underscored—sometimes jarringly—by recurring visual motifs from Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, suggesting a clash between nobility and brutal survivalism.
Jodie Comer brings depth and volatility to Isla, hinting at schizophrenia or perhaps something far more sinister. However, rather than centring her illness in the first act, the script sidelines her, choosing instead to focus on Jamie and Spike’s journey to the mainland. It’s a rite of passage: Spike’s first kill. While some on the island think the boy is too young, Jamie—portrayed with a potent mix of bravado and insecurity—insists it’s time. Taylor-Johnson captures the character’s toxic confidence well, presenting a man moulded by a world where proving strength is the only currency that matters.
On the mainland, father and son encounter two distinct types of infected. The slow ones—bloated and grotesque—offer Spike an easy initiation. But then come the fast ones. The iconic, sprinting infected from 28 Days Later have evolved. These new iterations are terrifying—muscle-bound, animalistic, and, crucially, more intelligent. They move in packs. They are led by Alphas: towering, conscious, tactical creatures that embody the full horror of infection taken to its logical extreme. Their presence marks some of the most electrifying and fear-inducing moments in the film, offering brief flashes of the original’s primal terror.
A mysterious fire spotted on the horizon leads Spike to uncover the existence of Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a once-trusted GP turned recluse. The islanders fear him, but Spike is drawn to his mythos. When the doctor finally appears, Fiennes delivers a performance that instantly elevates the narrative. He becomes the film’s philosophical axis, and the plot pivots as Spike makes a fateful choice: he returns to the mainland, this time with Isla in tow, believing Kelson might hold the key to curing his mother.
What follows is a grim but somewhat underwhelming journey deeper into the mainland’s heart. Along the way, the trio encounter NATO soldier Erik (Edvin Ryding), who provides comic relief, and endure an infected encounter at a petrol station. The film’s most disturbing moment comes during a surreal encounter with a pregnant infected woman going into labour—a grotesque, symbolic scene hinting at the virus’s potential to reproduce and evolve.
And here lies the central tension of 28 Years Later. Garland, known for his incisive, politically attuned writing, veers toward overindulgence. While his past work—Ex Machina, Annihilation, Civil War—has balanced subtext with storytelling finesse, 28 Years Later sometimes buckles under the weight of its message. It tries to say too much: about post-COVID paranoia, Brexit-fueled isolationism, patriarchal societies, militarisation, and even bioethical hubris. Rather than the original’s haunting ambiguity, we’re given pointed metaphors and overt didacticism. The result is a film more interested in moralising than unsettling.
The film’s final act further fractures its focus. In a jarring tonal shift, the pace rockets forward. Characters begin making erratic, sometimes illogical decisions—particularly Kelson and Isla—as the narrative barrels toward setting up the next instalment, The Bone Temple. New characters appear out of nowhere in a wild sequence that feels more like a genre parody than a logical conclusion. It’s a baffling finale that undermines much of the carefully constructed tension.
In the end, 28 Years Later is a film torn between two identities. On the one hand, it delivers visceral horror, strong performances (especially from Comer and Fiennes), and moments of genuine innovation in the evolution of its infected characters. On the other hand, it stumbles with a screenplay that sacrifices thematic subtlety for sociopolitical sermonizing.
28 Years Later aims to be both a worthy successor and a bold reinvention, but its reach exceeds its grasp. While it recaptures flashes of the original’s raw power, it also loses its way in a maze of heavy-handed allegory and sequel setup. It’s a film that remembers how to scream, but not always why.
Overall: 7/10
Movie Reviewer
