Gnarly and fierce zombie sequel 28 Years Later was worth the decades-long wait

28 Years Later
Directed by Danny Boyle
Written by Alex Garland
Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes
Classification 14A; 115 minutes
Opens in theatres June 20
Critic's Pick
It hasn't quite been 28 years since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland breathed new terrifying life into the walking dead – by making them run like banshees out of hell. Their 2002 lo-fi apocalyptic thriller, 28 Days Later, which had Cillian Murphy scampering through the wreckage of London's Piccadilly Circus, not a soul in sight, stumbled into the post-9/11 moment with a story about a country decimated by a weaponized virus.
Boyle and Garland, who only served as executive producers on the 2007 sequel (its story about U.S. occupation speaking directly to the Iraq War), are reunited in 28 Years Later. And if, like me, you expected them to double down on the relevance in a post-Brexit, post-COVID and war-addled moment, you'd be mistaken.
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There's room for those inevitable associations, for sure, but they're not insistent. Instead, this thrilling and effective reboot, a promising sign of what's to come, is happy to keep all that lightly baked-in while crafting a story more intimate and surprisingly emotional.
Don't worry. If you're here for the gnarly splatter fest this franchise is known for, rest assured there are plenty bodies impaled or gnawed at, and even skulls ripped right from the neck, the spine dangling along as if the filmmakers are cribbing from Sub-Zero's finishing move in the Mortal Kombat video games.
But at its heart, 28 Years Later is a Stephen King-esque coming-of-age story where death becomes a rite of passage for a child who is surrounded by the undead, anchored by young star Alfie Williams's tender and revelatory performance.
His Spike, a 12-year-old boy whose fierce determination is at war with his intense vulnerability, is raised on a quarantined island. The only connection to the British mainland is a well-guarded bridge that can only be crossed at low tide.
Negating the international viral spread promised at the end of its predecessor, 28 Years Later depicts a world that has successfully quarantined the pandemic to the U.K. Modern tech such as iPhones and social media have never touched Spike's island, a disconnect that sets up some of the funniest exchanges at the movie's halfway point. Instead, Spike's tight-knit community has reverted back to bows and arrows and working the land – and making raucous pub nights a tribal custom whenever a young lad becomes a man by venturing to the mainland to kill his first infected.
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We meet Spike and his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), when they take part in that ritual, navigating the mainland where the infected come in various states of deterioration. There are the slow crawlers, who slurp worms from the ground like appetizers before approaching human prey, alongside the more traditional fast runners. And then there's an Alpha, an evolved leader of the pack who is quicker, stronger and more tactical.
Spike and Jamie's tour, scouring for the infected, is rather light on emotional stakes. But Boyle, forever a kinetic filmmaker and stylist, keeps things interesting with a jarring and haunting soundscape scraping together rhythmic radio transmissions from the past and accompanied by scattered archival images from British history – mostly past wars and war movies – disrupting the relative calm and keeping our nerves in a frenzy.
When the infected do attack, and Spike and Jamie respond with their arrows, every kill shot is suddenly frozen, the camera rapidly swivelling around to a new position to absorb the violence. It's the visual equivalent of a record scratch Boyle hits maybe one too many times.
Just when a sense of familiarity begins to kick in, 28 Years Later really gets going. After narrowly surviving his virgin expedition, Spike leaves the island once again, this time on a mission to save his mother (a brilliant Jodie Comer).
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She's deteriorating, not from the infection but a different illness ravaging her body and mental state. He's escorting her to find a doctor known to be living in the deadly terrain, whom the islanders speak of in Colonel Kurtz terms. That doctor is played by Ralph Fiennes (crafty as ever), who we find covered head to toe in phosphorescent orange paste, surrounding himself with towers built from skulls and bones, underlining the playful Apocalypse Now references.
28 Years Later patiently builds up to these moments, during which the apocalyptic stakes are eclipsed by the warmth between the characters – their nurturing and protective instincts desperately clinging to joy, levity and the most comforting way to approach death.
Boyle, who won the Best Director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, has often let his sentimental side get the best of him. But here there's a maturity, gracefulness and elegance to how he hits those notes, though they're nearly undone by a goofy but admittedly fun coda setting up the series' next instalment.
There's more carnage to come in this franchise where days turned to weeks, and then years, and the end persistently seems to be right around the corner (not just in the movies, mind you). 28 Years Later at least got me optimistic about what's next.
Special to The Globe and Mail

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