In the early 2000s, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland took the world by storm with their revisioning of the zombie genre.  They called their antagonists if you were, the infested, because they were infected by a Nero disease. These weren’t slow and methodical, though they were fast and very dangerous. Cillian Murphy played  a patient in a hospital, and when he got out, the world in Great Britain was vastly different. Even the filmmaking style was different.  Boyle used a mini DVD recorder to  give the film a grainy old style look to it. Which still to this day is pretty awesome. I love the look of “28 Days Later” today , almost 25 years later.  Then there was a sequel that looked and felt very different, “28 Weeks Later”  28 Years Later, the infected still roam Great Britain to the point where it’s not a quarantine zone. That’s where the new story picks up.

On an isolated island off the coast of Scotland, a community lives peacefully, consisting at a safe distance with the infected on the mainland of Scotland. A father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor Johnson), is about to indoctrinate his son Spike (Alfie Williams) into the world outside their peaceful community. While they leave their sick mother/wife (Jodie Comer) behind.  They go to hunt the infected but end up getting hunted themselves. An alpha catches  sight of them and chases them back to their secluded island. It’s only a secluded part of the time, though, when the tide is high. This gives the Williams character an idea of how dangerous the world is outside their peaceful instance. He has a thing for trying to get his mother better, though, and that is on his mind quite a lot. 

In a similar fashion to when Boyle used mini DV recorders, he used an iPhone this time around. The difference is that the two movies look vastly different. This time around the world is meant to look beautiful. The highlands of Scotland are brought vividly to life using this updated technology. The green trees, grass, and yellow flowers, along with the blue sky, all look gorgeous on the other end of these cameras. There is an added element of the bright red blood that flows from the infected when they are shot with guns or arrows.The red gets all over the beautiful greens and yellows. It’s quite a sight to look at. I was genuinely taken aback by how these scenes looked. It’s all because of the master filmmaker Boyle.

The cast of this film is mainly filled with obscure actors in smaller roles except for the handful of big name stars that fill out three of the four main roles. Johnson. Comer and the young new actor Williams fill the majority of the time on screen. There is one actor who has a supporting role as a reclusive doctor with some interesting methods for disposing of the dead infected, Ralph Firnnes, who was recently nominated for his role of Bishop Lawrence in Conclave. He is a bit odd and flamboyant in his portrayal of this doctor who left the island community years before.  I love seeing Fiennes playing these kinds of weird characters. He balances all the Shakespeare’s type roles or villains he plays in other more prominent movies in the Harry Potter franchise. He was definitely a bright side in the third film in this franchise. The cast as a whole was fantastic.

Boyle and Garland made one big decision with this movie that has proven to be something that may be good, but it’s usually a mistake with other filmmakers and so-called franchises. They look like they are putting the horse ahead of the cart. In the sense that they with the backing of Sony are trying to build this world outward. More so than the two previous films. There are characters from other parts of Europe that appear and other characters who aren’t totally fleshed out by the end of the movie. I always say film the current movie and make it good before trying to go further with the world you’re building. You never know, similar to The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, things don’t always work out the way you think they will.

With any of these films in this trilogy so far, there are scenes that are filled with tension and dread. This one is no different. There are multiple sequences where the infected are running or cooling towards the protagonist, and as a viewer, I was genuinely scared and worried for them.  A scene on a train was wild as well as one involving a horde of infected chasing the Williams character and his father into a country home was quite frightening, to say the least. That’s what is so good about these types of films. They put the audience in the shoes of the characters. We feel in a way what they are going through. I sure as hell felt that way while watching this installment in the trilogy, and I’m sure many others will as well.

28 Years Later is a worthy third installment in this franchise. It has all the things fans of the previous two films will love. The tension filled moments we all love and more. The cast of characters played by some familiar faces like Johnson,  Comer, and Fiennes are all terrific. The new actor, Williams, does a great job as the main protagonist. He is who viewers mainly follow around, and it’s worth the time that was spent with him in this movie. The visual style using the iPhone was a nice change from previous filmmaking styles by Boyle and another. The story was interesting, and the music was intense. This is one of my favorite films of 2025 thus far.  It definitely lived up to my expectations.  

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen