28 Years Later

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's return to their undead franchise is a surprising mix of disturbing and sweet

It’s safe to say that Danny Boyle has always been a filmmaker who has defied conventions. From somehow finding a way to make a hugely entertaining movie about heroin addiction in “Trainspotting,” turning a crime drama into a feel-good musical in “Slumdog Millionaire,” directing a biopic of Steve Jobs that takes the three-act structure literally, and of course, reinventing the zombie movie with writer Alex Garland in “28 Days Later.”

I had never actually seen “28 Days Later” until very recently, but I had always known of its impact. While the movie might not hold up on a visual sense, after all, it was filmed with a Canon XL Digital Camera, which gives it the grain of an old YouTube video, it still manages to have a compelling story and an unsettling atmosphere. It was a massive hit back in 2003, so much so it earned a sequel, “28 Weeks Later.” While the sequel upped the ante in terms of its setpieces, the absence of Boyle and Garland’s creative flourishes was missed.

Now, 22 years after the original film, Boyle and Garland have returned to the franchise, not just with one follow-up, but a whole undead trilogy. The first of which, now playing in theaters, is “28 Years Later,” which has built up an immense amount of hype due to its incredible marketing, including that unnerving first trailer set to the Rudyard Kipling poem “Boots.” While the trailers have sold the movie as more of an action-horror feature led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson wielding a bow and arrow, Boyle has once again made something you wouldn’t expect, and it pays off greatly.

The movie opens during the initial outbreak of the Rage Virus, as a young boy named Jimmy (Rocco Haynes) witnesses his family being infected by the virus and brutally tearing each other apart. His father, a priest, embraces the outbreak, believing it to be Judgement Day, and leads an army of infected.

28 years later, the Rage Virus has been taken care of in continental Europe, but Great Britain is still under quarantine. On a remote island separated only by a highly guarded causeway, 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) is about to be taken on a rite-of-passage hunt on the mainland, where his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), will teach him how to kill his first “infected.” His mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), is battling an unknown illness, after being in a state of confusion is against Spike going, but the father and son insist.

While on their journey, Spike learns of Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a physician, who everyone claims has gone insane. Believing Kelson is the only one who can save Isla, Spike decides to become the man that his father never was.

I’m going to leave the synopsis at that, as the movie finds itself morphing into something else entirely. At its core, “28 Years Later” is a coming-of-age movie, just one with abnormally large zombie penises. The true protagonist of the film isn’t Comer, Taylor-Johnson, or Fiennes; it's newcomer Williams, who successfully carries the film on his shoulders, in one of the greatest performances from a child actor in years.

Williams is undeniably fantastic as Spike, a character who rides the tight line between being a young badass as well as a sheltered pre-teen. Garland’s script never forces Spike into situations that don’t feel unrealistic, and Williams' vulnerability helps make it easy to believe how he can quickly go from someone inexperienced to a true hero. Fiennes turns in a memorable supporting performance as Kelson, playing a character that may look a bit like Voldemort lathered up in greasy red paint, but feels unlike anything we’ve seen from him before. As Kelson, Fiennes simultaneously portrays a certain tenderness alongside someone more unpredictable.

Boyle’s direction may initially come off as jarring, intersplicing stock footage of historical events, using freeze-frames during zombie kills, and never shying away from using a nearly overwhelming amount of jump-cuts. Despite being from a major studio like Sony and costing a bigger budget than most modern horror flicks ($60 million), Boyle makes “28 Years Later” feel much more like an arthouse zombie movie than something like “World War Z.” At times, it can come across as self-indulgent, particularly in Spike’s dream sequences, but there are other moments where it helps the movie become far more emotionally resonant, especially towards the final act.

On a technical level, the movie succeeds in nearly everything it has set out to do. From disturbing setpieces of the “infected” waltzing through sunny meadows or crawling like infants through the woods, eating worms right out of the dirt, “28 Years Later” keeps your eyes glued to the screen. Especially with Young Fathers’ musical score, which captures the spirit of the franchise, while also letting the audience know, this is a far different film than the original two.

“28 Years Later” will undoubtedly alienate some audiences, while it moves at a brisk pace and has scenes of excitement, it's not the movie it's being sold as. It is entirely Boyle and Garland’s creative vision. The film concludes in a way that wraps up the story well enough, but it does end with a major cliffhanger leading towards the sequel (which thankfully has already been filmed). It’s abrupt but fascinating, and you can’t help but be anxious for what comes next.