28 Years Later: Everything's Changed, Mostly for the Worse, In Terrific, Heady Sequel

By Jim Slotek

Rating: A

Whatever you’re expecting in a generational sequel to the 2002 Danny Boyle/Alex Garland horror 28 Days Later, 28 Years Later has at least some of it.

There are the “Rage virus” fast zombies (now bigger and faster), there is gore, gobsmacking shocks, plenty of sustained dread, unsettlingly choppy and trippy editing, and a sampling or two of death metal.

But there is also a soulful and thought-out story, with quiet moments, pathos, wry laughs (when needed), sacrifice, and a dedication to the notion that everything changes to adapt to its current reality.

That writer Garland and director Boyle squeeze all their ideas into a tight less-than-two-hour movie is a minor miracle. Thematically reminiscent at times to a pile of predecessors, from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to the most recent Planet of the Apes series, 28 Years Later is on a higher, more thoughtful level than the mandatory 2007 Hollywoodish sequel 28 Weeks Later by Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Sandwiched between two “keepers,” that one is best forgotten.

28 Years Later’s premise is a compelling one. The world has managed to confine the lab-created virus to the U.K., leaving its inhabitants to fend for themselves. A village on an island off the coast of Scotland is surviving – in an almost medieval fashion, with a causeway to the mainland that is only passable during low tide.

The medieval theme is hammered home by jump-cut visuals of that era’s soldiers firing volleys of arrows at invaders. And indeed, bow-and-arrows are the weapons of choice in this society, which has devolved technologically in a single generation.

(The opening scene takes place during the Rage outbreak, with perversely enough, children watching Teletubbies as the worst occurs. One escapes. I did mention there were mood-lightening laughs).

Built into the village’s nascent tradition is the passage from boy to man, involving a hike to the mainland with one’s father, in this case, trepidatious 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) and his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Left behind is Spike’s bedridden mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), who suffers from mysterious bouts of panicky dementia.

There are close calls, some first kills, and a mysterious blaze in the distance that Jamie knows something about but doesn’t share with his curious son.

Now a hero and certified man, Spike is troubled by both his mother’s condition and the fire (which he discovers marks the home of a supposedly insane death-doctor, played – when we finally meet him – by Ralph Fiennes, whose few scenes are nonetheless the heart of the movie).

Feeling betrayed by his da’, Spike spirits the disoriented Isla to the mainland, where they begin a trek towards the doctor and a possible cure, surviving attacks and meeting the non-infected along the way. (Just how much the villagers have devolved occurs when they meet a stranded Swedish soldier named Eric, played by Edvin Ryding, whose conversations with Spike share so few common references, at times they might as well be speaking different languages).

The Scottish green hills and forests make for an intriguing change of scenery for the series, with nighttime given that added edge of dread that comes with unseen menace and glowing eyes.

More can be said, but 28 Years Later is to be experienced, and is a terrific bookend for the original (though there is an open-ended quality to the denouement that suggests room for yet another instalment – hopefully reprised by Garland and Boyle).

28 Years Later. Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. Starring Alfie Williams, Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Opens in theatres Friday, June 20.