Critics call 28 Years Later 'monstrous delight' and Danny Boyle's best film in years
28 Years Later has landed in cinemas, and critics have passed their judgement on the hotly-anticipated sequel to determine whether it is worth audience's time or not.
The movie reunites Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the team behind the terrifying original 2002 movie 28 Days Later, and it finds Britain a broken country almost thirty years after the outbreak of the Rage virus. The country has been put in quarantine, the survivors left to fend for themselves — the story centres on 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) and his parents Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Isla (Jodie Comer) and their experiences as they venture away from their island community and onto the mainland.
To their gated off community going to the mainland is a right of passage, with young boys being seen as men once they have their first kill of the infected that roam the picturesque Northumbrian landscape. But when Jamie takes Spike to complete this now time-honoured tradition their trip takes some dark and unexpected turns.
Critics were mostly delighted by the horror threequel, which also follows (but largely ignores) 28 Weeks Later. The Standard's Nick Howells gave the film five stars, for example, as he described the movie as a "monstrous delight".
Howells wrote that 28 Years Later is "wilder, weirder, darker, bloodier" than 28 Days Later and actually it is surprisingly "even better" than the iconic horror film.
Effusive with praise, he wrote: "It's that time, halfway through the year, when enough movies have been seen to risk the phrase 'best film of the year so far'. And right on cue, here we have it. Nothing in 2025 has been as good as this supercharged, shuddering blast."
The Telegraph's Robbie Collin also gave the film five stars in his review, and he remarked that it "stands as [Danny Boyle's] finest film since 2008's Slumdog Millionaire".
Reflecting on the subtle political messaging of the film in a post-Covid, post-Brexit world, he wrote: "This follow-up doesn't re-take the temperature of British society one generation on so much as vivisect its twitching remains."
The actor that stood out the most to Collin, and to many other critics was Ralph Fiennes, who portrays reclusive former doctor Kelson, who encounters Spike and his mother in the film's second act.
"It's Fiennes's gently patrician, RP-accented doctor – whose bedside manner is impeccable even when stripped to the waist and slathered in iodine – which gives 28 Years Later its lingering, Kiplingian ache," the critic remarked.
For The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney the film was "emotionally charged, visceral and immersive" which allows it to subvert expectations and means "it never feels like a cynical attempt to revisit proven material merely for commercial reasons."
"The movie goes beyond a survival thriller by introducing tender familial drama, a stirring spiritual thread and notes of sly humour," Rooney celebrated.
"The performances of Comer, Williams and Fiennes give 28 Years Later a soulful core that was also a distinguishing factor in the 2002 original, a testament to the endurance of humanity even in the darkest dystopias," the critic said of the standout cast. "Fiennes is wonderful in the choice supporting role of Kerson, half possessed wild man and half learned man of science."
Rooney also added that the strength of the film's narrative meant that the sequel, The Bone Temple, "can't come fast enough".
Not everyone was convinced though, The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film only three stars and wrote that it was "an interesting" if "tonally uncertain" sequel. He added that the film "takes a generational, even evolutionary leap into the future from the initial catastrophe, creating something that mixes folk horror, little-England satire and even a grieving process for all that has happened."
The issue the critic had with the film was its odd tonal shifts: "But, a little awkwardly, the film has to get us on to the mainland for some badass action sequences with real shooting weaponry – and then we have the two 'alpha' cameos that it would be unsporting to reveal, but which cause the film to shunt between deep sadness and a bizarre, implausible (though certainly startling) graphic-novel strangeness, there to promote franchise continuation."
Meanwhile The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey wrote that the film is so unsubtle with its messaging that it "feels like being repeatedly bonked on the head by the metaphor hammer" that does little to distinguish itself from the genre 28 Days Later helped to reinvent.
Despite her reservations, she wrote: "Boyle's still a largely compelling filmmaker, and the film separates itself from the first instalment by offering something distinctly more sentimental and mythic than before. Comer proves to be the key counterbalance, and there's an openness and a vulnerability to her performance that helps turn 28 Years Later into, ultimately, the story of a mother's love."
28 Years Later is out in cinemas now.
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