28 Years Later movie review: Danny Boyle's zombie film will make you cry with Alfie Williams' performance for the ages

Three films released in theatres this week - Pixar's story on loneliness (Elio), Aamir Khan sharing the screen with special needs actors (Sitaare Zameen Par), and Danny Boyle's return to zombie apocalypse (28 Years Later). And I can bet my soul nobody could have guessed the last one would be the most emotionally-charged tearjerker of the three. (Also read: Sitaare Zameen Par movie review: Aamir Khan's heartwarming film stumbles, then soars to score a basket in the 2nd half)
Right from its promotions to its trailer, and even the way 28 Years Later opens, the Danny Boyle film is full of misdirections. We have been led to believe that it is an action-packed zombie horror led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, he of Avengers and Kraven fame (that last one may not be the perfect thing on the resume). But the film is far from that. Yes, there is a post-apocalyptic society. Yes, there are zombies. And yes, there is tons of fighting and running around. But 28 Years Later is an emotional coming-of-age drama, disguised as horror. At its heart is 14-year-old Alfie Williams, who delivers a performance they will talk about for years, perhaps decades.
As the title suggests, 28 Years Later is set 28 years after the events of the first two films of the franchise. Britain is a quarantine zone, overrun by the undead. The US and Europe seem to be thriving. But just off the coast of the Scottish Highlands, a band of survivors has built their safe haven on an island. It is connected to the mainland by a causeway only accessible during low tide. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) to the mainland to show him the ropes. But Alfie discovers that his father has lied about many things, including the presence of a doctor. The 12-year-old decides to return with his sick mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), and ask the mysterious Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) for a cure. All this while, he must navigate his own inexperience, his mother's hallucinations, and waves of the undead.
28 Years Later begins on a disjointed note, and the initial setup does test your patience. But technically, the film hooks you in really quickly. The cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and that haunting score from Young Fathers is brilliant. Mantle, in particular, brings the soul of the franchise back, merging it with a very Alex Garland-like visual style (the filmmaker is the writer here). The end result is an almost graphic novel-like work of art that may be abstract at times, but visually engaging at all times. The score is a delicious cherry on top.
It may have been billed as a zombie horror, but 28 Years Later has less than 20 on-screen deaths during its near-2-hour runtime. The focus is more on survival, and Spike's crusade to find a cure for his dying mother. He is not afraid to fight back against his flawed father and even engage in some light arson to get his way. Alfie Williams is a star, one I hope gives us these performances for years to come. If Bella Ramsey was already setting the bar high for child actors in horror and fantasy shows, Alfie is taking it through the stratosphere here. Even in scenes with the legendary Ralph Fiennes, the 14-year-old steals the show, a marvellous achievement for someone that young and inexperienced.
There is a scene right before the climax of the film where the young Spike must come to terms with mortality for the first time. It is a touching sequence, filmed with minimal background score and punctuated by Alfie Williams' breaths. Just how beautifully Danny Boyle has managed it was evident by the pin-drop silence in the packed Mumbai theatre where I watched the film.
The only blemish on the film is the bizarre final sequence, where Boyle brings his Trainspotting goofiness in a Tarantino-esque fight sequence that honestly feels a bit out of place in this film. But that can be overlooked for 110 minutes of classic cinema. If Nosfearatu brought back good old noir back to horror, Sinners married the genre with musical in a stunning experiment. And now, 28 Years Later brings a coming-of-age tale in the genre. That is three films pushing the envelope in the genre in the space of six months. The golden age of noveau horror is certainly on in Hollywood!

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