28 Years Later

28 Years Later not only revives a franchise you might have forgotten was a franchise, it also returns the great Danny Boyle to making pure cinema. The English filmmaker won the Academy Award for Best Director on 2008’s sublime Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire and followed that up with another underappreciated masterpiece in 127 Hours. In the fifteen years since, Boyle has kept busy, but on television and in films that didn’t bear his distinctive thumbprint. There was 2015’s talky Steve Jobs, 2019’s Beatles ode Yesterday and the 2017 Trainspotting sequel that barely played in North American theaters (and I still haven’t seen).

Lapsed threequel 28 Years Later returns Boyle to the director’s chair and trusted longtime collaborator Alex Garland to the writer’s desk they both occupied on 28 Days Later (a 2002 release in the UK and 2003 in the US), but vacated for 2007’s sequel 28 Weeks Later. It is a return to form for both creators and for a franchise that again injects some vitality in a genre that too often seems to be missing it.

Years opens with 2000s children watching “Teletubbies” before reminding us of the horrors of the rage virus that left the United Kingdom infected by something resembling a zombie apocalypse and now quarantined and struggling to endure. In the quasi-present day, our young protagonist is Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old boy whose Dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has deemed ready to venture to the dangerous mainland for a father-son hunting trip.

In this universe, fathers and son don’t hunt for deer, but instead aim their bows and arrows at the heads and hearts of “the infected”, humans afflicted with the deadly rage virus. It’s an absurdly perilous pastime and the outing has multiple close calls with different classes of infected, but father and son make it back home to their island by the skin of their teeth.

The second half of the movie finds Spike journeying back to the mainland with his bedridden mother (Jodie Comer) to try and have her seen and diagnosed by a doctor who may have lost his mind. With a more meaningful motive established, the film is better in this second half, as the long odds of survival keep us on the edge of our seats. When we finally meet the doctor, it’s Ralph Fiennes painted iodine orange with the mindset and know-how to endure.

Many, if not most, horror films are commercial plays, which explains why the genre is full of sequels, prequels, and remakes and why successful brands that get dusted off every generation. That was clearly not the starting point for Boyle and Garland, but their little $8 million digital video apocalyptic thriller wound up grossing $85 million worldwide and thus by the end of the 21st century’s first decade, we got a sequel, a graphic novel, and a comic book series. Although profits were generated, none of those follow-ups seemed to have a tremendous cultural impact and that seemed to be where the saga ended. Until now, when Boyle and Garland have primed 28 Years Later to be the first in a trilogy of sequels. The next, titled 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and directed by The Marvels‘ Nia DeCosta, is scheduled to open very soon, in January 2026.

While it feels disingenuous and overly calculated to revive a dormant two-film franchise with three consecutively produced sequels, that strategy is out of sight and mind for the vast majority of the dark, well-made, and haunting Years. The one exception comes in an unnecessary final sequence that is purely designed to introduce Jack O’Connell as the leader of a track-suited cult who have become experts at slaying the infected in creative ways. It would have made for a passable post-credits Marvel-esque tease. Instead, it undercuts a dramatically satisfying finale that the film has earned and leaves you thinking as much about the “business” as about the “show.”

Up until that epilogue, though, Years is absorbing cinema, despite being shot entirely on an iPhone, something that surprisingly does not stand out or frustrate the way it has on certain prior Steven Soderbergh experiments. Boyle reminds us he is a supremely talented filmmaker with a knack for capturing humanity. He’s a stylish director and Years drips with his signature kinetic flair, but as usual, there is substance to go along with the style and the experience is all the better for it. Garland, who made his film debut on 28 Days Later and has since evolved into a prolific director himself with triumphs like Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Civil War, remains a gifted and thoughtful writer who prioritizes character development over thrills, but delivers both in spades.

I had some doubts about this sequel, not just because of the ambitious, elaborate multi-year revival plan, but also from the fact that it was shown to critics alone simply one night before the movie opens stateside. Nonetheless, now distributed by Sony, who apparently sees the value in mid-budget filmmaking that currently eludes Fox’s parent company Disney, 28 Years Later opens tonight to glowing reviews and palpable excitement. It is undoubtedly one summer movie to take note of.