Without hyperbole, I think it’s safe to say that 2002’s “28 Days Later” brought the zombie/infected side of media back to life. The 2007 sequel “28 Weeks Later” took that story a step forward, but 2025’s “28 Years Later” has taken the series to a whole new realm. With Danny Boyle and Alex Garland back at the helm, this movie took a page from their own playbook and re-invented the genre.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
“28 Years Later” (2025) Review: What We’ve All Been Waiting For
The Story
“28 Years Later” took a much different approach than the previous two movies. Uniquely, it adds more humor, while also adding more viscera than the last two films. Thankfully, it does this in a way that does not require you to have any background with the story of the “Rage Virus.” The intro scene of the film shows the early days of the virus breakout, and immediately throws you into a panicked state by showing a child named Jimmy who loses his family, including his father, a religious figure who welcomed the apocalypse.
Jumping forward 28 years, we are introduced to our main characters for the new storylines. We meet Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old who has only lived during this apocalypse on the island of Lindisfarne, his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his mother Isla (Jodie Comer). We quickly learn that Isla is sick, and due to the lack of doctors in a post-apocalyptic world, her illness is unknown. Spike is following in his father’s footsteps as a sort of “hunter-gatherer” and heads to the quarantined mainland of Great Britain to get his first kill. As expected, this does not go as planned.
This film also introduces us to new forms of the infected, showing they’ve found their own sort of hierarchy as well. There are “the fat ones,” who are larger, but slower versions of the infected. You have your standard infected like we’ve seen in the previous films and lastly we meet the Alphas. It’s explained that Alphas react to the virus in a unique manner, essentially acting like steroids for them, making them stronger, faster and smarter. Spike and Jamie end up running into an Alpha and have to hide away from its “tribe.” Ultimately, they are able to make it back to the island, but this is not without a close call of nearly dying to the Alpha. While hiding, Spike notices a fire and asks his father about it, who shrugs the fire off as if it’s not important.
Upon return to Lindisfarne, a party is thrown for Spike, where he ultimately has too many drinks. Upon getting sick to his stomach, he notices that his father has stumbled off with a woman who is not his mother, and finds them engaging in an affair. He returns home to his sick mother and his father’s friend Sam (Christopher Fulford) who is watching over his mother. When discussing the fire with Sam, Spike learns that the fire he saw previously was started by Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). Spike becomes enraged overnight, between his fathers lies and the affair he witnessed, he snaps at his father, who snaps back and strikes him. This ultimately leads to a confrontation where Spike begs his father to leave.
After learning of a doctor who he believes can save his mother, and the disagreement with his father, Spike decides he’s going to take his mother to the doctor, despite his father’s insistence that the doctor is insane. Spike starts a fire, which ultimately is used as a distraction for them to escape to the mainland and head to the doctor. As is expected, it is a bit of an arduous journey where they meet a Swedish soldier named Erik (Edvin Ryding) and stumble upon an infected woman who is giving birth. Isla, in one of the confused states caused by her illness, ultimately assists the infected in giving birth, and they notice that her child is not infected. The Alpha attacks and kills Erik, who had just killed the infected mother, and is near killing Spike, Isla and the baby before they are saved by Dr. Kelson. They learn that Dr. Kelson is not actually insane, but rather respects the dead and has built shrines as a reminder. Upon inspection of Isla, Dr. Kelson deduces that she has a form of cancer that has spread and will likely kill her soon. He ultimately grants her a peaceful death, and allows Spike to lay her to rest. Upon returning home, we learn that Spike left the baby, now named Isla after his mother, and has decided to stay on the mainland on his own. In a wild turn of events, we meet Jimmy, now grown up and seemingly leading a gang.
The Good and the Bad
“28 Years Later” has some of the best acting we’ve seen in the series outside of Cillian Murphy’s role as Jim in the original. The two high points for me are the performances by Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes. Comer plays the role of sick, confused, yet doting mother extremely well, and ultimately is the character I connected to most throughout the story. Unsurprisingly, Ralph Fiennes absolutely delivers as Dr. Ian Kelson, and you can feel how this world has changed him while still allowing him to remain the man he always was. Alfie Williams plays his character well and I’m going to be honest, I hated him for it. His character of Spike was extremely annoying during the first half of the movie, making stupid choice after stupid choice, but he truly redeems himself throughout the rest of the movie.
The movie itself is solid, but not without it’s faults. There are quite a few moments that I felt were a bit too “try-hard.” Between the overuse of jump scares to having the Alpha’s have extremely large *appendages*, there are quite a few moments of this film that I feel were not adding to the plot, but rather taking away from it. Additionally, we see many of the traditional zombie/infected movie tropes of someone searching for a “cure,” or having to grow up quickly in a situation they were not prepared for. Additionally, the action sequences are very cluttered and harder to follow, even though the action side of things is minimal compared to the other films.
All in, this film sets itself up for the future movies in the new trilogy being created. It’s apparent that it will not be getting the gritty, cult-classic feel of the origin movie of the story, but rather a new outlook on the actual cinema aspect of the film. If this were simply a standalone film as opposed to the beginning of a planned trilogy of films, I would have far more problems with this movie. That said, I think this film still got the job done.
My Ratings:
Cast: 4/5
Score: 4.5/5
Cinematography: 5/5
Story: 3/5
FINAL SCORE: 4.1/5
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