’28 Years Later’ (review)

28 Years Later is a remarkable film.

It marks the return of the original 28 Days Later writer and directing team of Alex Garland and Danny Boyle, respectively.

That in of itself is enough to have brought me back to see it.

I love Boyle’s original film, and for the most part, I have enjoyed all of his movies. Garland can do no wrong, in my book. Whether he is writing or directing or both, Garland is one of my favorite modern-day filmmakers.

Originally, soon after 28 Weeks Later was released, plans were made to create a third film, 28 Months Later, written by Garland and possibly directed by Boyle. However, a legal quagmire involving ownership and distribution rights nearly indefinitely delayed any possible third film.

Fast forward to 2025, and we are gifted a brilliant and thoughtful, rage-fueled film from the two creators of the innovative 2002 original.

What Garland and Boyle have concocted is a look at what life in the UK looks like after nearly 30 years of living under a quarantine in the shadow of the “Rage Virus” outbreak. What does life look like for the survivors and infected as they barely co-exist?

Focusing on one group of survivors’ lives, they exist by embracing the past. They sustain themselves on the land by farming, fishing, and scavenging periodically on the mainland. They have created a near-perfect and idealistic, almost old-time community lifestyle. They have built their particular community on a small island connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway that is both heavily defended and only accessible at extremely low tides.

After a coming-of-age hunting expedition, young Spike discovers that there is an exiled doctor on the mainland who might be able to help his ailing mother, who is suffering from an unknown, continually degrading condition. He sets out with her on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, endeavoring to avoid the many horrors that await him. Horrors that have not only mutated the infected but also other survivors as well.

I realize as I write this review that this movie is going to piss off a lot of people. I’m not sure if people will be as satisfied as I am with what the creators have given us.

Like 28 Days Later, 28 Years Later is an intimate story about survival, love, and the people who continually fight insurmountable odds just to see another day amid an “end of times” event.

This is also a coming-of-age film about Spike, a 12-year-old boy who, every day, faces the ordeals of living in a world of the Infected. Spike is learning how to live, fight, and cope. The Infected are indeed horrible. What he is going to discover is that just living life itself can present even more terrible horrors than he could ever imagine or want.

Personal heartache and tragedy doesn’t just stop because the world has gone to shit.

28 Years Later is better than I anticipated, given the 18-year wait. It has everything that I loved about the original; it is peak Boyle stylistically. This film is a visual feast for the eyes. His use of archival footage and Taylor Holmes’ reading of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots” is both chilling and insightful. I love his style of editing a movie. The story is everything I love about Alex Garland’s writing; it is unsettling and uncomfortable. Sometimes it is downright unnerving. The emotional beats are just as impactful, though. So many intimate “right in the feels” moments offset the disquieting ones so that both are equally impactful and hit like kissing an oncoming locomotive.

Thankfully the film has none of the crap filmmaking choices of 28 Weeks Later. No terrible McGuffins, no awful character motivations that are only used to move the plot along, and no eye-aching, brain-melting shaky cam. The camerawork is thoughtful, and when the pace quickens and adrenaline pumps, the camera allows you to follow the action easily.

Speaking of camerawork. In my research for writing this movie, I discovered that 28 Years Later was mostly shot with a friggin iPhone 15 Pro Max. I LOVE THIS. I hope that this information is true because if it is, it opens up an entirely new world of possibilities for filmmakers everywhere. Gods, I hope this is true.

I also read that this is the first film of a new “28 Days” trilogy. The next film will be a direct continuation of this, as this ended on a somewhat funky and wacky cliffhanger.

I hope it’s not another 28 years before we get the next installment. Maybe we will finally get our 28 Months Later installment, if only in name. I know it’s called 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and that’s fine with me because I know, at least I hope I know, what that could possibly entail, and I am so okay with that.

28 Years Later is a worthy successor to 28 Days Later and completely washes the foul taste in my brain that was left by 28 Weeks Later. I only wish the powers that be, aka the rights holders, had gotten their shit together so that we could have gotten a 28 Months Later.

Thankfully, the fates have smiled on us, and we have been gifted 28 Years Later.

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Produced by Danny Boyle, Alex Garland,
Andrew Macdonald, Peter Rice, Bernie Bellew
Written by Alex Garland
Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson,
Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes