By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Alfie Williams, Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Directed by Danny Boyle
Written by Alex Garland
Sony/Columbia
At a time when half the movies being made seem to be legacy sequels, 28 YEARS LATER… (one of three such films being released in as many months by Columbia) might seem at first glance to be a lateral move by director Danny Boyle and scriptwriter Alex Garland. But if anything, the duo seem energized from the very first scenes by the prospect of revisiting the territory they first covered in 28 DAYS LATER (which is now 23 years old, but never mind). This is actually different from the typical legacy sequel in that, for understandable reasons, no characters from 28 DAYS… or 28 WEEKS LATER appear in it, and even the slavering villains have been given something of a fresh take.
The infected (let’s be pedantic and not refer to them as zombies) are seen as a few different types in 28 YEARS LATER… The ones encountered early on are obese, slow-moving hulks that resemble adult babies, while the majority of the fast-moving, lither ones are naked or almost. YEARS also introduces the Alphas, who are just as savage as the rest but have also retained a semblance of intelligence, and are bigger and stronger as well. They figure in a number of the movie’s most frightening scenes, particularly a stunningly shot nighttime pursuit between an Alpha and our heroes, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams).
This duo are part of a community that has survived on Holy Island off the English coast, safe from the rage virus that has led Great Britain to be quarantined and infested by the infected. Jamie is a scavenger, i.e. one of the islanders who occasionally cross a causeway to the mainland that becomes revealed by low tide, to search for food and supplies. On his latest trek, he’s taking Spike with him for the first time–a rite of passage that will test the bow-and-arrow skills that the island’s children are trained in. This mini-society and the ways it functions are established by Boyle, Garland and their cast with well-observed, efficient strokes, as is the central family unit that also includes Jamie’s wife and Spike’s mom Isla (Jodie Comer). She’s ill–not with the rage plague, but in more familiar ways that makes Spike’s life even more fraught than it already is. And if that isn’t enough, Spike at one point witnesses Jamie doing something that threatens to erode his faith in his father.
Comer and Taylor-Johnson may receive the higher billing, but 28 YEARS LATER… is really Williams’ show. As a boy navigating a perilous and challenging world he shouldn’t have to live in, the young actor (who had only a couple of small roles before this one) is the movie’s emotional center, conveying fear and bravery and vulnerability and resolve. He keeps us believing in Spike, which becomes key to the movie’s second half, in which he makes a fateful decision that takes the story into a surprising, and surprisingly moving, direction. The grown-up actors are terrific as well, also including Ralph Fiennes in a role that shouldn’t be described in detail, since it’s not a typical part for the actor, and he’s key to some of the most affecting developments in the later going. Adding a touch of lightness is YOUNG ROYALS’ Edvin Ryding as Erik, a Swedish soldier the protagonists encounter on the mainland.
While keeping the bulk of the focus on the uninfected people and their emotional travails, Boyle and Garland haven’t skimped on the genuinely horrific and shocking moments and setpieces. Moving up from the early digital cameras he employed on 28 DAYS…, and collaborating once again with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, Boyle shot 28 YEARS LATER… on multiple iPhones, which allow for a cleaner image while preserving the caught-on-the-fly edginess that keeps the proceedings relentlessly tense. Some of the scenes in the first half have the grotty feel of Italian zombie cinema, and even a couple of decades after the original movie helped introduce the concept of “fast zombies,” the images of the virus-addled killers hurtling across fields and through buildings are once again primally terrifying. Though there are numerous bursts of digital gore, there’s also plenty of palpably grisly prosthetic work provided by John Nolan Studio.
Although the concept of a devastating disease sweeping the world obviously has even greater relevance now than when their first venture into this world came out, Boyle and Garland don’t force the allegory. While brief flashes of historical footage reinforce the idea that what goes down in 28 YEARS LATER… is an extrapolation of real-world events, the filmmakers aren’t foregrounding a political statement here. They’re out to recapture the bone-deep fear and ferocious intensity of 28 DAYS… while maintaining a deep connection with their imperiled people, and in that they have succeeded splendidly. It’s no secret that 28 YEARS LATER… is the first of a trilogy, and it signs off with a setup for Nia DaCosta’s 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (coming next January) that manages to seem not gratuitous but inevitable, and perfectly set up. This is one of the many things that make 28 YEARS LATER… good enough for this franchise-fatigued viewer to say, bring on the next chapter!
