28 Years Later
Though the wrongfully hated Yesterday is centered on rock ‘n’ roll music, it lacks the energetic, MTV-style visuals and editing that define much of director Danny Boyle’s best work. But have no fear: 28 Years Later, the filmmaker’s first feature since that Beatles-themed, 2019 charmer, finds the Oscar winner returning to those flashy roots. And as then 71-year-old Martin Scorsese did almost a dozen years ago with The Wolf of Wall Street, it exudes a nimbleness seemingly at odds with this 68-year-old artist’s age.
Boyle’s second sequel, 28 Years Later joins T2: Trainspotting in likewise improving on its beloved predecessor. While 28 Days Later brought fast zombies to the mainstream and stunned viewers with its still impressive expansive shots of an empty, evacuated London, its lo-res HD cinematography seemed kitschy in 2002 and has aged horribly. But as was the case with T2, Boyle is a better, more experienced filmmaker now and wastes no time putting these enhanced goods onscreen.
The same goes for screenwriter Alex Garland, who's come a long way since 28 Days Later, enhanced by his own string of successes behind the camera. In his first Boyle collaboration since Sunshine (2007), the now veteran scribe presents a world where life goes on — except in quarantined Britain, where survivors of the Rage virus outbreak are forced to fend for themselves. On the island of Lindisfarne, a sense of hardscrabble normalcy has been established and fought for, and it’s fascinating to be dropped into this society and learn its people’s ways.
Weaving through it is 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), who goes across the connecting tidal causeway to the mainland for the first time to hunt the infected, his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) there to guide him, bows and arrows in tow. Boyle and Jon Harris, his editor of 15 years, intercut this father/son journey with archival video of WWI British soldiers in training, paired with a disturbing, 110-year-old performance of Rudyard Kipling's military poem “Boots” by actor Taylor Holmes. The bombardment of imagery creatively connects this modern-day mission with a national tradition and ratches up the tension as they head out to meet an uncertain fate.
On the mainland, the duo encounter intriguing new (to us and Spike) sights: obese, crawling infected known as “slow low”s; a zombie hung upside-down with “Jimmy” carved in its back; and an Alpha, a giant infected that Jamie says takes a dozen arrows to bring down. Boyle and Anthony Dod Mantle, his cinematographer on nearly every film since 28 Days Later, capture the familial adventures through a mix of camera sources, including slick, low-flying drone photography. But it’s the quick cuts to freeze-frames on multiple sides of a zombie’s head or heart as an arrow pierces it that make it clear Rock ‘n’ Roll Danny is officially in the building.
Back on Lindisfarne, Spike’s mom Isla (Jodie Comer) suffers from a mystery ailment resembling early onset Alzheimer's — but without a medical professional on the island, no one's sure what ails her. Intrigued by towering smoke on the mainland, the boy prods his grandfather (Christopher Fulford) for details and learns that it’s likely from Dr. Kelson. Feeling like Jamie betrayed him by hiding this potentially helpful information, Spike uses this epiphany and one other to unfairly flip on his father and take it upon himself to bring his mother to the medicine man.
As is to be expected for an inexperienced tween and his sick mother, more craziness awaits them on this trek, though in one of the film’s most exciting sequences, Isla proves that she still has some gas in the tank. They inevitably meet up with Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Kelson and the legendary actor imbues this pragmatic loner with a mix of heart and ego-free bluntness that few performers could have crafted, elevating this sequel to new emotional heights.
Not all of his actions make sense, but perhaps in time they will as 28 Years Later ultimately sets up future adventures in colorful fashion. Even if they don’t, this weird, stylistically rich return to the Rage virus world still deepens zombie movie lore and hopefully marks the return of the Danny Boyle we know and love.
Grade: B-plus. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: Sony Pictures)
