28 Years Later Review: A Miserable Journey in the Apocalypse

Danny Boyle’s long-awaited return to the 28 Days Later universe with 28 Years Later comes packed with the pedigree of a dream reunion: Boyle directing, Alex Garland scripting, and Anthony Dod Mantle once again capturing the grim splendor of a post-Rage Britain. With Cillian Murphy serving as executive producer and a strong cast including Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, and Alfie Williams, the stage is set for a searing and revitalized horror epic. Instead, what unfolds is a film that is both overwrought and underwhelming — a movie that gestures toward profundity while largely losing the primal terror and urgency that once defined the franchise.

A Story That Falls Short:

The story takes place nearly three decades after the second outbreak, centering on a small group of survivors living on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the British coast. There’s a mythic, almost biblical tone to the worldbuilding, and that religious underpinning is one of the film’s boldest swings. Ralph Fiennes plays a hermitic figure whose philosophical leanings and bone temple (yes, really) symbolize a new age of spiritual reckoning in the wasteland. The film opens with a decent prologue set in the early days of the virus, and while it is stylistically reminiscent of the original’s haunting opening sequences, it soon becomes clear that the magic — or more accurately, the terror — is waning.

Visual Elegance Over Narrative Momentum:

Dod Mantle’s cinematography remains one of the film’s greatest strengths, mixing sickly twilight hues with bursts of infernal red that capture the decayed majesty of a country left behind. The film makes excellent use of its landscapes — the Northumbrian coasts, crumbling stone churches, and fog-drenched ruins — which add gravitas even when the plot meanders. Boyle still has a talent for kinetic horror, with the infected portrayed as primal, chaotic forces. There are moments of genuine dread, particularly in a few set pieces where the infected burst forth with the same terrifying ferocity that once helped redefine zombie cinema.

Yet those moments are fewer and farther between. The film frequently sacrifices pace for ponderousness. Garland’s screenplay is more thematically ambitious than ever before — tackling illness, generational trauma, spiritual belief, and the ethics of survival — but these ideas are often explored through clunky monologues or half-baked allegory. The film’s attempt to build a mythos around “Alpha” infected strains, mutated with higher intelligence, feels more like a franchise pivot than a natural extension of the story. Instead of enhancing the horror, it dilutes it. The Rage Virus worked best when it was unknowable and animalistic. Giving it structure — even a hierarchy — undermines what made it so viscerally frightening to begin with.

Strong Performances Lost in a Weak Script:

Performance-wise, the cast does their best with what they’re given. Alfie Williams, as young Spike, anchors much of the narrative with a mixture of vulnerability and grit, and his arc is at least emotionally consistent. Jodie Comer is effective in a subdued, tragic role, though she’s given little room to stretch. Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character feels underwritten, and his presence, though physically commanding, adds little beyond exposition. Ralph Fiennes, meanwhile, gives a committed but somewhat baffling performance. His character, Dr. Kelson, is introduced as a sinister enigma, but the film ultimately muddles whether he’s meant to be a prophet, a lunatic, or something in between. His storyline — involving ritualized bone temples and acts of mercy — is high on symbolic value but low on emotional resonance.

Another issue lies in the film’s structure. The film drifts through tones — survival thriller, religious allegory, family melodrama — without ever fully landing on one. The pacing is inconsistent, particularly in the middle stretch, where long sequences are devoted to Spike’s internal conflict and encounters with eccentric figures. These moments, while occasionally haunting, lack narrative propulsion. For a film that belongs to a franchise defined by its breathless urgency, this entry often feels oddly listless.

It Doesn’t Know What It Wants To Be:

The score, composed by Young Fathers, tries valiantly to tie everything together with swelling, mournful motifs. And while the music certainly captures a tone of faded humanity, it sometimes overstates the film’s intended gravitas. That’s emblematic of the movie as a whole: it wants to be a haunting philosophical epilogue to the series, but too often falls into self-seriousness. The quieter, character-driven moments are not compelling enough to justify the lack of sustained tension or originality in the horror beats.

And herein lies the core problem: 28 Years Later is a movie unsure of its identity. It’s not frightening enough to stand as pure horror, not sharp enough in its commentary to be great dystopian fiction, and not emotionally cohesive enough to work as a character study. It evokes grand, final-chapter energy, but doesn’t stick the landing. Boyle and Garland clearly aimed to expand the mythology and bring a sense of poetic finality to the trilogy. But what they’ve created feels more like a reflective echo of better films — reverent of the past but incapable of matching it.

Overall:

That’s not to say the film is without merit. Its ambitions are evident, and there’s a certain melancholic beauty in its depiction of a world broken beyond repair. It flirts with thematic territory that few post-apocalyptic films dare to engage with so openly. But in choosing ambiguity and symbolism over tension and storytelling clarity, it loses much of what made the original 28 Days Later a genre-defining masterpiece.

Ultimately, 28 Years Later is a film that seems more invested in its legacy than its audience. For longtime fans of the franchise, it may offer fleeting moments of nostalgia and closure. But for anyone expecting a gripping continuation or reinvention of the series, this installment falls frustratingly flat. What could have been a triumphant return instead feels like an elegy weighed down by its own gravitas. And to top it all off, it has one of the worst endings I’ve seen in a movie in a very long time. Seriously, it had me with my jaw dropped in the theatre at how appallingly bad it was. Here’s hoping The Bone Temple is better, but at this point, my hopes are as low as they could possibly be.