28 YEARS LATER REVIEW
“A schizophrenic film that doesn’t know whether it should be a fast-paced horror-thriller or a family drama or something in between”
I’ll freely admit that I haven’t watched either 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later in a very long time, nor did I remember to make the time to watch them again before watching the latest collab between Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, but that’s mainly because I kept hearing that this is a separate standalone story that has little to do with the previous movies.
That being as it may, we begin in the past with a young boy named Jimmie who watches his mother being attacked by the Rage-infested, before escaping to his father’s church and seeing more of the same. We then cut forward 28 years (of course) and witness life on a remote island off the coast of the British mainland, where a primitive community has been established. We meet Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Jamie – no, that’s not Jimmie grown-up, as some might presume – who is about to take his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) across the causeway to the mainland to teach the boy how to kill the infected, who have now evolved into horrifying beasts, including the deadly and harder-to-kill Alphas.
I’m not sure how much else I want to say about the rest of the general plot, other than the fact that Spike needs to get medical help for his sick mother Ayla (Jodie Comer), and when he learns about a doctor on the mainland, they head back over there to once again face the Rage-infested beasties. I will say that the doctor is one Dr. Kelson, played by Ralph Fiennes, who only shows up during the movie’s last act, but his bizarre hobby makes that section go into even more interesting areas.
The setup for this new state of England is pretty solid, since it feels like humanity in England has reverted to medieval times, with everyone using bows and arrows as weapons, allowing for a number of grizzly kills. Taylor-Johnson does a decent job holding down the first half of the movie, but Williams is such a terrific young actor that by the time he successfully takes over as lead, you don’t really miss Taylor-Johnson. Comer also gives another great performance as a woman dealing with mental health issues that often confound her young son, and when Fiennes joins the mix, it’s just those three (more or less) when 28 Years Later finds its footing.
Plenty of stuff in 28 Years Later works quite well, particularly the production design and creature design, with some great creature performers in prosthetics, many of whom are seemingly running around naked. (I guess when you’re infected by the Rage virus, there’s no real reason to keep wearing and washing clothes, but it makes certain scenes seem like something from Woodstock.) Even so, it’s impressive how many of the confrontations with the Rage-infested were done during the daytime, to show that it’s not a “they only come out at night” situation.
Some of the other technical aspects, like the camerawork and cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle – who shot the original movie and has worked with Doyle a lot – and the editing, just made certain scenes very jarring to watch. That’s something others had problems with in the original movie, but it bothered me much more in this one, because you expect that having a bigger budget (and more filmmaking experience)would lead to a better-looking movie. The score by someone called “Young Fathers” also works quite well, as does the general sound work, which mostly involves a lot of Rage-induced screaming. Oddly, there are aspects to both the sound and the visuals that work well, though the decision to replicate the look of the original indie movie may have been a mistake.
As much as I enjoyed 28 Years Later, I really wanted to like it more, and most of my problems are due to pacing and tonal issues that create a schizophrenic film that doesn’t know whether it should be a fast-paced horror-thriller or an emotional family drama or something in between. Normally, the more emotional moments later in the film might affect me, but in this case, it didn’t have much effect, so it ended up leaving things on a lower note. A second movie is already in production for release in January, which presumably will continue Spike’s story, along with another character introduced, but I didn’t leave this movie thinking, “Boy, I can’t wait for that sequel,” and that’s never great for something intended as a new franchise trilogy.
Rating: 7/10
28 Years Later opens nationwide on Friday, June 23