TMS Movie Review: 28 Years Later

(DNA Films / Sony Pictures)

Twenty-three years after Danny Boyle’s zombie movie 28 Days Later (2002) was released to wide acclaim and instant success, the director and his former collaborator, screenwriter Alex Garland, are back with 28 Years Later. Virtually ignoring everything relevant to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later (2007), Years Later goes back to basics and feels more like a prequel in some ways than your regular legacy sequel. Naturally the vast majority of the original cast can’t return for any obligatory cameos like you would expect in this kind of reboot; so we are given completely new characters to focus on, including a child protagonist.

Set 28 years following the virus of the original 2002 film breaking through the UK, 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) is leaving home—an isolated Scottish island free from infected zombies—for the first time with his father Jamie (Aaron Johnson) to properly train how to protect himself from the dangerous creatures. His seemingly disturbed and bedridden mother, Isla (Jodie Comer) and most of the community disapproves, thinking Spike is too young, but Jamie is convinced the young boy already has potential and can hold his own.

(DNA Films / Sony Pictures)

Ralph Fiennes appears as a former doctor-turned-nomad loner on the mainland Spike believes can help his mother, and Edvyn Ryding co-stars as a soldier who bumps into Spike and Isla. In usual Boyle fashion, 28 Years Later has a lot of camera tricks like freeze-frames, SnorriCam, shaky cam, POV shots and an incredibly British atmosphere. The score by hip-hop group Young Fathers is effective enough, and the talented cast deliver for the most part performance wise, with Williams managing to not be too overly precocious as a juvenile lead. But sorry to say, I was mostly bored through 28 Years Later. I enjoyed the classic original film back in the day, but this time around, it felt more like a mix of a survival film set in the wilderness and a family drama back on the island. While these are genres that can be interesting, for a movie with people trying to not be killed by numerous dangerous zombies, it’s a bit underwhelming. I get the metaphors and themes, but the slow pacing and lack of action makes it feel more like a drag. What’s funny is that, before the jarring ending occurred, I was going to at least praise the film for not being yet another legacy sequel taking the piss out of its own universe and actually taking itself seriously for once. But even that possibility was shot down with the final scene.

Though 28 Years Later appears to be working well for most horror/zombie/28…Later fans, it’s mostly another example of the 2025 summer movie season frustratingly striking out for me.