Every good zombie story is about much more than eating brains and the dead coming to life. Most of them share certain tropes, such as a hardened group of survivors who have learned how to fight and exist in a dystopian world, a need to move slowly and quietly to avoid detection, and of course, a healthy helping of blood and guts.
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have said repeatedly that 28 Days Later and its two sequels are not zombie films. We can agree to disagree, as it seems more a matter of semantics to classify the primary antagonists of these movies as something other than zombies simply because they're infected by a virus instead of reanimated corpses.
Once an artist releases their work into the world, it becomes open for interpretation, and so here at least, we're going to use their term, "infected," interchangeably with the word zombie. That's because 2003's 28 Days Later, 2007's 28 Weeks Later, and now 2025's (it really has been 18 years since the last film in this long-dormant franchise) 28 Years Later share all the hallmarks of a good zombie story, with some unique twists.
Audiences know what to expect when they show up for a zombie movie, but 28 Years Later constantly found new ways to thrill and surprise me. The movie you feel like you're watching in the first half, in which Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Jamie and his son Spike, played by Alfie Williams, have some father-son bonding time over traveling from their island home to the infected-infested mainland for the first time as a family. Jamie teaches Spike to stay calm under pressure, and he helps get them out of a few terrifying situations. When they make it home by the skin of their teeth, the movie completely turns on its axis.
I have no interest in spoiling anything that happens next, because I went into this movie knowing very little about the plot and I thoroughly enjoyed every twist and turn along the way. 28 Years Later is never what you expect it to be after its opening act, and I loved it for it.
Who knew that a zombie film could so aesthetically pleasing?
Director Danny Boyle's shooting style and artistic palette work wonders here. You'd never expect a movie with so much blood and violence and ooze to be so beautiful, but there were numerous times I wished the projector would freeze just so I could take in the entirety of the frame. From expansive fields of lavender and heather, to a single infected's silhouette against an orange sunset, to a cosmic-looking nighttime sky used as a wide-angle backdrop to a harrowing chase, it's clear that there was an artist at work here.
This film has many layers, and that holds true for the look of it as well. For every painterly backdrop and slow pan over a gorgeous vista, there's a quick and jarring cut to zombies feasting on flesh. Whenever they'd give chase, the tension was ratcheted up by frenetic camera work and a pumping soundtrack. The newly introduced "alpha" infected was startlingly resistant to pain, and I didn't know whether to shriek or laugh when it (he?) began performing Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat-inspired fatalities on both human and animal alike.
One constant theme in zombie movies is that the people are scarier than the zombies themselves. Civilization's collapse is always brought on by a horde of hungry former humans, but it's the survivors and their worst unchecked impulses that are the true terror after that.
28 Weeks Later has a touch of that when Jamie and Spike return home to what ends up being, for Spike, a disillusioning hero's welcome, but it mostly subverts that idea later. What the film seems really interested in hammering home, isn't that humans are the true threat, but that the infected and the non-infected are not so different after all.
Jodie Comer, who gives a powerhouse performance (more on that in a second) as Isla, Jamie's wife and Spike's mom, is sick with some kind of unknown affliction, and her ailment drives the action in the second half. That illness is juxtaposed with the zombies, some of whom are going through more human problems then you'd ever imagine.
The entire cast is phenomenal
Let's use Comer as a jumping off point, because she was riveting every time she appeared on screen. Her character arc, which begins as a poor bedridden woman who doesn't even know what day it is and carries her through some seriously emotionally-charged scenes, is at the heart of what the movie is about.
Taylor-Johnson, who's capable of playing characters both rugged and debonair, really hits a nuanced note with Jamie. Is he a bad father for taking his son out too soon into a cruel world, or a good one for protecting him and giving him the tools to survive? Is he a good husband for trying to keep his wife comfortable and shielded from the horrors outside their home, or a bad one for the way he's given up on finding a treatment for her illness?
Alfie Williams has hardly any credits on his IMDB page, but that's bound to change soon, because the 14-year-old was incredible while being asked to carry both halves of the movie, the only actor in this all-star cast burdened with that task. You feel every bit of the varying emotions he feels towards his two parents, and your heart races with his as he attempts to steel his nerves and remember his archery training every time an infected is bearing down on him.
Then there's Ralph Fiennes, who damn near stole the show in the final third. Fiennes is one of our greatest living actors, someone capable of embodying He Who Shall Not Be Named and the man with the final say in choosing the next Pope. All I'll say is that in less capable hands, his part could have been a caricature that derailed what had been a great movie before his introduction, but instead he elevated everything to an entirely new level with a touching and tender performance that cautions us against judging a book by its cover.
What's the final verdict on 28 Years Later?
Rather than being the capstone on a quarter-century-spanning trilogy, 28 Years Later is a launching point for a new trilogy of its own. In fact, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has already finished filming, and it's due out in January.
I'm trying to keep myself from using the word "surprised" too often in this review, but I can't overstate how many times I sat up in my seat and said something to the effect of, "Whoa, what?!" The final scene of the movie was one of those moments, and it was such a bold, zany swing that I have no choice but to respect it. It also laid the groundwork perfectly for the next movie, while tying back into the opening scene of this one.
Should you see 28 Years Later in theaters? Heck yes you should. It's a more-than-worthy follow-up to the previous two films thanks to a thought-provoking and twist-filled script, a bevy of star performances and a director who dares to dream big with every shot.
Jamie tells Spike repeatedly throughout the movie, "Head or heart," in reference to where he should shoot the infected to take them down, but it's also a nod to the dual ways this movie will satisfy audiences. For your head, a zombie romp that begs to be watched with a big bucket of popcorn, and for your heart, an unexpected emotional journey. I'm still buzzing hours after the end credits rolled.