Written by: Alex Garland
Starring: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes
Rating: [3/5]
At times there are stories one just does not click with for one reason or another where an appreciation can exist, but a love never gets borne out. Seemingly, that’s where I remain with the zombie films with the number 28 attached to their title. Somehow always managing to exist as a mixed bag for me, 28 Years Later fits the bill once again where great stuff happens, but it contains a storyline that fails to fully measure up.
With Europe fully rid of the Rage virus, only one village remains connected from the British Isles, still in permanent quarantine. Spike (Alfie Williams) and his family reside here and as the young boy steps into manhood with the initiation in his interaction with the infected, he learns about the opportunity to save his mother by the help of a doctor residing in the very dangerous British Isles.
While zombie movies have remained a staple in entertainment for many years now, one could make the argument that 28 Days Later deserves its flowers for being one of the foundational reasons why. It presented a form of zombie that did not simply wander around aimlessly until it found something to eat, but rather these terrifyingly quick and relentless creatures. With one other sequel thrown in, 23 years later we now have another where it seeks to display where the world is at now with this Rage virus ravaging England for decades now. In this go-around we have a reunification of the team of the original film, with Alex Garland penning the script and Danny Boyle in the director’s chair. All promising to return to the glory days of the first film, and in some instances this film manages to accomplish that feat and in others it unfortunately fails to deliver.
With the sequence of titles in this series of films, I am not ashamed to admit my annoyance that they did not elect to utilize the natural next step from days to weeks, and then months. Instead, they jumped straight ahead to years. A silly gripe but just something I had to throw in there, especially considering more films lay on the horizon for this franchise. In all seriousness though, where this feature thrives occurs in the first two acts where we receive an introduction to this new setting and these characters. It very much peaks in the early scenes shared by Spike and his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as they go on the venture set to have Spike essentially enter manhood. We see what it takes to kill one of these infected, but most importantly introduces what these new set of films would like to explore, which is the evolution of this infected beyond mindless zombies.
This mostly transpires with the concept of these alpha zombies, who stand much taller than the others and prove difficult to kill through current means. Seeing one of these alphas try and run down Spike and Jamie as they track back to their village with the tide closing behind them demonstrates the very best this film and the entire series has to offer. A scene that excited me for what potential this film has in store but then the second half happens and just deflates the whole thing.
Everything occurring with Spike and his mother as he tries to seek out this doctor meant to cure her notches the film down quite a bit as it barrels down to one of the worst endings I have seen in a good film. Genuinely a jaw-dropping finale, not in a good way, that further justified my dissatisfaction in the way Boyle, Garland, and his team sought to lay out these films. It compounds from the lack of emotional connection built between these characters that makes this moment of intentioned emotional catharsis to come across as unearned. In a sense the story then feels incomplete but not in a way where it excited me for what comes next but rather concerns me on how it will ultimately all come together.
Issues galore in 28 Years Later, but when it has a first act like it does, I can appreciate the overall vision of this story while not loving the overall execution. It does make me wonder how seeing the complete story with the movies that come next will have me land on this film, but other than that, I have no inclination to go back and watch this one again other than the scene of Spike and Jamie running away from the Alpha. Perhaps the next one will be the one where it fully clicks with me.
Films with Josh 
