Movie Review: 28 YEARS LATER

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: June 20th, 2025 / 06:33 AM

28 YEARS LATER movie poster | ©2025 Sony Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes, Christopher Fulford, Amy Cameron, Rocco Haynes, Chi Lewis-Parry, Celi Crossland
Writer: Alex Garland
Director: Danny Boyle
Distributor: Sony/Columbia
Release Date: June 20, 2025

Has it really been twenty-eight years since the release of the original 28 DAYS LATER? No, it’s only been twenty-two years since the zombie-esque horror film came out in 2003, but that’s fine. Original director Danny Boyle and original screenwriter Alex Garland, after letting other folks handle 2007’s 28 WEEKS LATER, are back with this third installment in the series.

Onscreen, it has indeed been twenty-eight years since “the rage virus” was unleashed on an unsuspecting United Kingdom. The infected aren’t undead, but they are very strong, very fast, and inclined to rip whoever or whatever they catch limb from limb. This being almost three decades after the initial outbreak, there have been a few mutations.

While the virus has been driven out of mainland Europe, the “mainland” U.K. is now a quarantine zone, with international ships patrolling the waters to make sure no one and nothing gets in or out.

However, there are small islands around the U.K. where life goes on as normally as it can for people raised with technology now having to do without. Of course, the generations born here since the virus don’t know any other way of life and are therefore perfectly content.

Eleven-year-old Spike (the expressive Alfie Williams) lives on one such island with his parents, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Isla (Jodie Comer). Isla is bedridden most of the time, but because the island has no real doctors left, nobody knows exactly what’s wrong with her. She is devoted to her son, and Spike adores her.

Even though the village elders think Spike is a little young, Jamie is determined to take his boy on a “hunt.” At low tide, a causeway leads from the island to the main U.K.. It’s become an islander tradition to ignore the quarantine and cross the causeway to hunt the infected with longbows.

This effectively occupies Act One. Act Two becomes a family drama with some horror punctuation, Act Three is surprising, and there’s another tonal change at the end that is even more startling.

Garland’s script is full of hints that are accurate but wind up in places we don’t always anticipate, and Boyle’s direction maintains steady tension while contrasting the beauty of nature with the savagery of the action. One brilliant decision is to show how the island, with industrial light pollution long absent, sits against the full glory of the night sky. It bathes 28 YEARS LATER in wonder, even as we dread what may be around every corner.

Williams is excellent as the young protagonist. Comer and Taylor-Johnson both have roles that require subtle, nuanced adjustments throughout. They are impeccable in showing us who their people are bit by bit. Ralph Fiennes (not a spoiler, he’s in the trailer) delivers a terrific, understated performance.

28 YEARS LATER has plenty of blood and guts for the gorehounds, but it also has cinematic splendor and a lot of genuine feeling.

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