28 Years Later (2025)

It's been nearly a quarter of a century since Danny Boyle's impressive post-apocalyptic zombie/non-zombie tale, 28 Days Later (2002), that opened with a stark and eerie view of an empty London, while Cillian Murphy wandered the deserted streets.

It turned out that a nasty virus had turned most of the population into braindead killers twenty eight days previously, and we followed a group of survivors in their attempts to avoid the infected, in what was a splendidly fresh take on the genre. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's follow up, 28 Weeks Later (2007) was a surprisingly effective (sort of) sequel with people attempting to return to their homes only for all hell to break loose once more.

So to get away with it once in terms of sequels was an achievement, but to return to the franchise decades later and announce that 28 Years Later will be the first of a new trilogy feels at the very least, pushing your luck. But with Danny Boyle returning to the director's chair and Alex Garland on writing duty, expectations were elevated.

We join a community of survivors who have taken refuge on an island off the North-East coast of England, attached to the mainland by a single, heavily defended causeway- and returning to the mainland only to hunt for food, or in the case of the plot here- so a young boy can capture his first 'kill' as he has turned twelve years old; the strange and randomly selected age for this rite of passage. Alfie Williams, as the aforementioned twelve year old Spike, is one of the film's standouts- he's very close with his extremely troubled and unwell Mother (Jodie Comer) and as a result of his Mother's ailments spends most of his time with his Dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who tries to teach him the ways of the world.

We begin with Spike's first trip to the mainland with his Dad, and we're provided with glorious and eerie landscapes, similar to those that made the first two films so striking. Spike makes his first kill, and the two return; a great party is held amongst the community to celebrate.

What then happens is where the film switches its focus. During the party, Spike accidentally stumbles upon his father in a compromising position with another local- and is understandably furious. Whilst on the mainland, Spike glimpsed a fire burning, which according to his father is the work of a doctor who has now isolated himself on the mainland and is supposedly mad. But Spike believes he might hold the key to his mother's recovery, and after his father's indiscretions, carts his mother off to the mainland by himself.

Unfortunately, this is where 28 Weeks Later starts to fall apart. Spike's relationship with his father is interesting; even more so after the party, and you're gripped to see how this unfolds considering they have to live together on an isolated and godforsaken spit of land, or perhaps have to rely on each other to survive on the mainland.

But we don't see Spike's father for more or less the rest of the piece. Spike's journey to bring his mother to Ralph Fiennes' (terrific as always) doctor becomes the central plot, and it's disappointingly plodding. There's a throwback sequence which takes place in an abandoned Shell garage beside a Happy Eater that brings back fond memories of the original, and the introduction of a solider character offers further promise- but he's gone as soon as he comes, and we're back to focusing on Spike and his mother.

Fiennes brings some relief as the elusive doctor, but the crux of emotional heft is missing- there's nothing to get your teeth into, and despite the fact that you're clearly supposed to be invested in the relationship between Spike and his mother, you simply don't care.

Boyle's visuals are still central to the piece, and the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is superb; but the fact that you end up focusing primarily on it rather than the central characters tells you how much the story isn't up to snuff. Several critics have described how terrific the ending is, and what a shock it provided- but that's simply not the case; all it does is offer an insight into who or what the follow up might entail.

28 Weeks Later is far from terrible and provides some interesting ideas and a very promising opening forty minutes or so. But there's no doubting whatsoever that it falls way short of its potential; the trailer looked genuinely terrifying, blending elements of folk horror with jump scares, but what we're left with is a rather inert thriller that's short on both thrills and scares.

Here's to hoping its sequel does away with the meandering threads of this film's second half (events that unfold suggest that it will) and pumps the series with some life- and not in the way that a rather grim sequence in this film does. 6.0/10