Sunday, 22 June 2025

28 Years Later







Jimmy Fixes It 
For The Infected


28 Years Later
Directed by Danny Boyle
UK/USA 2025
Columbia
UK Cinema Release Print


Warning: Big spoilers. Avoid reading until you’ve seen it.

28 Years Later is, of course, the sequel to both 28 Days Later and its follow up, 28 Weeks Later. The first was a very popular retake on the zombie apocalypse genre but with the zombies replaced by RAGE virus infected killer humans and it had a strong opening which was quite similar to John Wyndham’s novel (and various adaptations of) The Day Of The Triffids. I would say the first two thirds of that movie were pretty good but it all, for me, kind of runs out of steam when you get to the military presence in the last third. I loved the second film though, even if it was more of a traditional style entry into that specific sub-genre... I just don’t remember a whole lot about it, truth be told. 

This third installment, made some 23 years after the first installment and, once more by the same director working with writer Alex Garland, is not just a sequel to those movies but also the first part of a new trilogy of 28 Years Later themed films, the second of which is rumoured to star the main lead of the first movie (the then unknown Cillian Murphy) and is currently to be released in January of next year.

And it’s a pretty good, actually. It has a strong opening where a bunch of kids try to ignore that the house they live in is being overrun by zombies as they watch the Teletubbies on television, somewhere around the time of the first outbreak... and the movie, which then jumps the 28 years later to the main setting, harkens back to this cold open at the very end of the tale. 

The main lead for the remainder being a 12 year old boy called Spike, played brilliantly throughout by Alfie Williams. The film is a game of two halves followed by a left of field prologue sequence. In sequence one it’s made clear, with some mostly credible retconning, that the UK is the only place where the infected remained. The UK is therefore a quarantine zone to the rest of the world, the shores patrolled by boats from other countries to make sure nobody tries to escape the British Isles. Spike lives in a small village compound separated from the mainland by a causeway which is only accessible when the tide is low... and yeah, that’s an obvious plot device for bad timing when running from hordes of RAGE infected zombies, for sure. 

Spike is taken to the mainland by his father, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, to get his first ‘zombie kills’ as a kind of rites of passage. And this is where the one thing which is wrong with this movie comes into play... people stupidly putting themselves in completely stupid situations and making stupid decisions for the sake of a taught and intense series of frightening scenes. And, yeah, the film is quite intense and bleak, more so in the first half hour than in any other part of the movie, I would say... as Spike and his father barely make it back to their village in one piece. 

The second main section involves more stupidity as Spike escapes from the village with his mum, played brilliantly by the great Jodie Comer, in order to seek out a Hearts Of Darkness Kurtz like character who was once a doctor and, of whom, evidence is found that he still lives (due to Spike and his dad observing a fire in the distance when they were hiding from the infected). Jodie Comer’s character Isla keeps having strange, delusionary episodes and, sometimes mistakes Spike for her father. However, when they do find the doctor, played by the great Ralph Fiennes, he diagnoses brain cancer and informs them she hasn’t got long to live. You can probably guess what happens next. 

And it’s a quite gruelling film for the first half an hour, for sure... and there are some beautiful shots in it. The cinematography looks like a gazillion dollars which is why I am suitably shocked and impressed to find the whole movie was shot on an iPhone... because it does look like an epic, it has to be said. Not to mention some great artistic choices such as the 1915 recording of Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 poem Boots used to chilling effect (as it also is in the trailer) and the use of the Lawrence Olivier version of Henry V to further push certain metaphors. 

The second journey out to find the doctor is still quite action packed but I would say it’s more about the visual poetry of the story rather than the fright factor... although there are certainly some unsettling scenes to be had from this second expedition outside the relative safety of the compound. 

And then we get to the end sequence which... I really feel I need to talk about. Spoilers... you don’t want to know. 

So Spike makes a decision, after delivering a newborn baby back to his home. A newborn but uninfected baby which is birthed by a zombie... from when Spike’s mum helps said zombie out, in terms of the delivery. And the decision he comes to is to stay outside and take his chances in the world of the infected. However, it’s not long before he finds himself cornered by a load of RAGE infected, fast zombies. And then, in the film's third or fourth example of unlikely deux ex machina, he’s saved by a group of blonde haired... well. 

Okay... 

So this ending reminded me of the kind of satirical edge that 2000AD comic used to get into trouble for in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In a bizarre twist, this group of people, who I thought at, first were supposed to be blonde, Swedish death-metal fans and who beat up and kill the zombies with what seems to be almost superhuman strength and agility... are something which I think some members of the British audience may find a little triggering. They’re all dressed in roughly the same way, with track suits, lots of jewellery and white/blonde hair which may or may not be wigs. But it was only when the leader (who I think is supposed to be the grown up version of the main Teletubbies watching kid in the film’s prologue) puts his ring laden hand out to Spike and says, “I’m Jimmy, let’s be pals.” that I realised I was observing a cult of people who based themselves on Jimmy Saville. 

Now, it has to be said, that since the first movie was set contemporary to its release, these later installments are taking place in an alternative timeline of the UK. So, what makes the Jimmy Saville thing an even more curious choice is the fact that, in this timeline, his various crimes had not yet seen the light of day in public. So it is a very unusual choice, especially since it seems to imply that the next part, directed by Nia DaCosta (who did a great job on The Marvels, reviewed here, as far as I’m concerned), will be picking up the story directly after this one. 

And that’s me done with 28 Years Later, I think. A pretty good movie and an unexpected sequel after all this time (I was still waiting for a 28 Months Later, myself). Worth catching at the cinema, if you want to be impressed with what an iPhone can somehow capture, I would say. 

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