28 Years Later

When talking about 28 Days Later, the focus is frequently on its use of fast zombies. While crucial to the terror it inflicts on its viewers (and characters), and undeniably key to understanding the resurgence of zombie films in the decade to follow, the thought that a twenty-year-old idea was solely responsible for its pop culture impact is overblown. If that was the case, at least one of the superficial copycats that followed would have hit, such as its own mediocre follow-up, 28 Weeks Later. Fortunately, with original director and writer Danny Boyle and Alex Garland (respectively) back on board, 28 Years Later gives us a brand new story in a changed world, but one whose lessons are the same as ever, rendered even more powerfully than before.

While far from the first film to be primarily shot on iPhones, it's one of the few action films to do so, owing to the difficulty of making it look good. But that's just the thing; it doesn't need to look "good". Boyle correctly identified that part of the power of 28 Days Later came from leaning hard into the early days of digital cameras, playing up the muddy, lo-fi images it captured to heighten the nightmare unreality of the piece, a world falling apart and beset by ugliness. While each shot here is far more legible than anything from the original, nothing looks quite right. Objects and people all feature a slight aberration at their edge. Movement shows a visible stutter while looking unnaturally clear. Late in the film we meet Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a man covered in a burnt-orange powder, turning him into an optical illusion burned into and leaping off the screen. Combined with the stellar camerawork, which heavily utilizes haphazard angles, unnatural close-ups, and some fairly long takes, we feel like a fly on the wall, voyeuristic observers of a society which has crumbled then reformed around a mixture of the old and the new.

One of the least heralded part of the original is the most striking, working to craft and emotional core and making the travesty of the devastation all the more visceral. It's a simple scene of the improvised family taking a break to picnic amongst some ruins. It's a poignant statement of the necessity of finding joy and peace and love to carry us through any and all darkness, a beautiful reminder to take pleasure in every moment we're alive. With Boyle back in the director's chair, it's unsurprising a comparable thread emerges in the third entry. Although it doesn't develop until late, it reflects on all that came before, coloring your prior experience. It's present in the relative normalcy of the community which develops, of course. But it's how the Infected and Kelson are deployed that is truly memorable, both of which complicate our feelings on what had become accepted knowledge, and bind us all together more tightly than before. It's through them that the scale of the tragedy that has befallen the British Isles becomes clear, which in turn transfers to the protagonists, giving the story a deep resonance; I did not expect to shed tears at a 28 Day Later sequel, never mind hold back sobs. This quiet, contemplative humanity is the series' secret weapon.

The overall structure of the story isn't anything too radical, but the execution is what truly shines. With the Rage virus pushed back from mainland Europe, the whole of the UK and Ireland have been put under a strictly enforced quarantine. Spike (Alfie Williams) and his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) live on an island in northern England, in a community reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Having just turned twelve, it's time for Spike to be christened a man: he and his father venture onto the mainline so Spike can start racking up kills of the Infected. It's a sly way to slowly reveal the ways in which their world and the Infected have changed now that the virus has been present for so long, and humans have not. It's also on this trip that Spike learns of a man who may be able to help his ailing mother Isla (Jodie Comer). Given his father's disinterest (and philandering), Spike takes his newly bestowed adulthood seriously, and resolves to complete the task himself.

The action returns to its roots as periods of stillness punctuated by flurries of terrifying, gory violence. It's photographed beautifully, full of unique and stunning compositions, and continues to tell the story with devices you haven't seen before. For example, a jerky pivot around the moment of impact shows even more of the violence and drives home the sheer brutality of this place, after which Jamie is delighted and whooping and calling it fun. This world has wormed its way into his heart, calcifying it. Spike is still unsettled by it all, and although he'll learn to survive, he manages to retain more of himself as a result. It further imposes the looming threat of death over every moment, which also keeps the audience from becoming inured to it. There's no need to focus on people turning; we've seen that before. The far more interesting story is that of surviving, even thriving amidst the chaos. What's maybe most surprising is that isn't limited to the human beings we encounter...

Most of the film's limited weaknesses are small stylistic quibbles, places the CGI looks rushed, or some incredibly on the nose choices (e.g. juxtaposing Spike's ceremony with archive footage of soldiers going off to war). But there are two parts which are notably distracting.

The most jarring element which takes you out of the narrative is Erik (Edvin Ryding). As a Swedish soldier who washed up on shore with some mates who've all since perished, he represents the outside world. Erik reminds the audience that what we're watching is contemporary, that despite the tragedy unfolding not far from their own shores, life goes on. However, for the short time he's with our main characters, he's largely comic relief, an attempt by Boyle and Garland to comment on the absurdity of modernity, as he tries (and fails) to explain to Spike concepts which come to us as second nature before his phone battery dies forever. It's cringey, it saps all the moment and immersion of the story, and worst of all, it's truly pointless.

The other stems from being the first part of a new trilogy, the second of which is slated to come out in six months. The movie opens on a young child named Jimmy (Rocco Haynes) escaping the original outbreak, but not before watching his father be devoured by a swarm of Infected while in a delirious religious fervor. His name pops up in graffiti a handful of times, keeping him in our awareness. He eventually shows up as an adult played by Jack O'Connell, but not until the very last scene, which is easily the worst of the whole lot. It's an abrupt and ineffective tonal shift which is neither funny nor poignant, and undermines some of what came before. What's even more frustrating is that they blew by a perfect ending point to get there. This is the rare case where a movie's button would have worked better as a mid-credits scene.

Still, those are relatively small issues in a work that is pretty remarkable overall. That a sequel to such a monumental classic could come out nearly twenty-five years later and be this good is astounding. The involvement of the original creatives was obviously an important aspect, but we've seen plenty of times that hasn't panned out. Instead, it would seem they came to the series as hungry artists looking for an outlet. Garland has been commenting on the modern world for the entirety of his directorial career, but Boyle hasn't been directing much of anything lately, never mind putting forth something so thoughtful. Because that's the real key. Nothing about this feels like a cynical cash grab to capitalize on an old IP. Every inch of it screams of a story yearning to be told. If that was true of every sequel, I'd be amongst the voices clamoring for everything to be turned into a franchise, rather than constantly skeptical. Boyle and Garland have made me a believer, and I look forward to The Bone Collector.