Title: 28 Years Later
Describe This Movie In One Return of the Living Dead Quote:
TINA: Why don’t we go to the park?
SCUZ: Oh we can’t, the cops said they’d shoot us if we go back to the park.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Apparently clothing doesn’t last 28 years.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Tinky-Winkys out of 5.
Tagline: “Time didn’t heal anything.”
Better Tagline: “O Todesbaum, O Todesbaum, wie glänzend eure Schädel.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: It’s a big day for Spike (Alfie Williams), because dad Jaime (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is taking him to the mainland for the first time. Mom Isla (Jodie Comer) isn’t too happy about that, for while Spike is mature enough for a 12-year old, the mainland is — after all — crawling with crazies infected by the Rage Virus. Whoops, did we forget to mention the entire UK, where Spike lives, is under quarantine? Or that Isla is suffering an unknown ailment that only a reclusive “doctor” a few days’ hike away may be her only hope?
“Critical” Analysis: Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s first director/writer collaboration, 28 Days Later, is widely credited* for jump-starting the zombie horror subgenre. Never mind that the Infected in it, its Boyle-less sequel (28 Weeks Later), and now 28 Years Later, aren’t technically dead. If it walks (runs) like a zombie … etc.
This one was a long time coming. Rights issues and other projects (Sunshine among them) kept Boyle and Garland away, with the former saying at one point that he was done with zombie movies. Fast forward to 2023 or thereabouts, and the two were back in the saddle. Mostly hand waving away the events of Weeks (we’re told the virus has been eliminated from the Continent), Years focuses on a small group of survivors on Lindisfarne (The Holy Island), off the northeast coast of England.
28 Years Later starts at a clip, giving us a quick and dirty history of the Rage Virus and the ongoing quarantine of the United Kingdom before following Jamie and Spike through some harrowing encounters. And it’s good! It’s Danny Boyle, after all, the guy who slips from comedy (Trainspotting) to horror (Sunshine) to family films (Millions) to biopics (Steve Jobs) with apparent ease.
But then something interesting happens. As the focus shifts from father-son dynamic to Spike and Isla, who embark on an ill-advised cross-country trek, 28 Years Later becomes something of a meditation on the nature of death and family dynamics, albeit one still peppered with grisly “zombie” action.
Boyle, as usual, also makes some intriguing visual choices. Some of the interstitials as Jamie and Spike explore the mainland (Medieval archers repelling invaders from Laurence Olivier’s Henry V) are reminiscent of the gladiatorial scenes Oliver Stone inserted in Any Given Sunday. And just about every (bow and arrow) kill is freeze-framed for added impact.
And that Rudyard Kipling poem (“Boots”) is just as disturbing here as it is in the trailer.
That trailer also gives the impression that Taylor-Johnson plays a much bigger role, but once Spike and Isla hit the mainland, it’s their show. The misery is briefly broken up by the unexpected arrival of Erik (Edvin Ryding), a Swedish soldier whose patrol ship sinks. Any laughs to be had come from his trying to explain online shopping to Spike, and Spike’s reaction to a pic of Erik’s plastic surgery disaster of a girlfriend.
Much as with Jim, Selena, and Hannah in the first movie, the relationship between Spike and his mom carries the second act, with Comer doing an incredible job as a stricken mother whose instincts still kick in at key moments. Her and Spike’s scenes with [REDACTED]** are also seriously great.
Boyle and Garland plan for this to be the first of a new trilogy (the second installment was filmed concurrently with Years), and the final scene … I don’t even know how to describe it. It simultaneously upended an assumption I think most people are going to make from the jump and introduced an anarchic element almost completely at odds with the generally straight-on horror that came before.
Though in all honesty, the most terrifying thing about this might be those goddamned Teletubbies at the beginning.
*Or disparaged, depending on your opinion of The Walking Dead and its infinite variants.
**For the six of you who still try to avoid spoilers.
28 Years Later is in theaters today.
