Cinema Dispatch: 28 Years Later

28 Years Later and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Danny Boyle

I don’t know how controversial of an opinion this is, but I’ve never been a fan of the 28 films. That’s not to say they’re bad, but I simply didn’t find them all that memorable; especially the second one, of which the train scene at the beginning is the only piece that’s stuck in my memory. I was shocked to see how many very famous people were in that movie and how little impression they must have left on me, but they were also movies I watched before I started this whole film critic thing, so maybe I just never saw them in the right frame of mind. Perhaps that changes today, as Danny Boyle’s Faustian bargain with this franchise has demanded another entry nearly three decades after the first one. Will this be another well regarded entry for the Zombie genre, or has time made this series more decrepit than the walking dead themselves? Let’s find out!!

Twenty-eight years after the initial outbreak, which would be twenty-seven years, eleven months and two days since Jim woke up and twenty-seven years and four months since Don proved himself to be the crappiest dad ever, the world has adopted a lock-and-leave policy with the entire British Isle and has left survivors to fend for themselves in self-sustaining communities while making sure none of the zombies even think about taking a dip in the English Channel via a constant patrol of warships. One such survivor is Spike (Alfie Williams) who, in accordance with post-apocalypse tradition, is now a man at the age of twelve and is ready to shoot zombies to death with bows and arrows. He takes his first journey from his protected island community to the mainland and manages to survive with the help of his dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but let’s just say that experience was rather mixed for poor Spike, and with rumors of a doctor being the one to start the conspicuous fires he saw out on the hills, he decides that there’s more important things to do than just scraping by with his dopey dad. Wrapping up all the supplies and courage, this twelve-year-old can muster; he sneaks his sick mother (Jodie Comer) onto the mainland in hopes of finding a cure for her illness through this mysterious doctor everyone else seems so afraid of. Will Spike be able to keep himself and his mother alive through the zombie hoards, especially with the terrifying Alpha Zombies roaming the countryside? Who else is holed up on this island, and will they help Spike on his quest to find the doctor, or be an even worse nightmare than the zombies themselves? Seems like this wasn’t the best thought out plan, but then again, what else did this kid have to look forward to anyway? Another forty years of unseasoned beets and scavenged cans of baked beans?

I suppose it would be a bit unfair of me to declare this one the best of the series given how little my brain bothered to hold onto the first two movies, but there is a lot going for this movie that makes it stand out among its contemporaries. It takes a lot for a zombie movie to feel any bit relevant since the Zombie Wave crested about fifteen years ago, and admittedly the story and world building feel a bit tired and dusty, the once innovative Fast Zombies themselves feel a bit old hat at this point, but Danny Boyle knows how to direct a movie and avoids making this feel like just another cookie-cutter studio horror flick. I know that nineties’ nostalgia is starting to get on peoples’ nerves, but there is a certain grungy music video style to this that you just don’t see in movies these days, and it’s refreshing to see a franchise stick to its aesthetic guns while modernizing in all the right ways. I’m glad that it no longer looks like it was shot on a VCR camcorder, but am just as glad that it has weird visual indulgences; from the way it whips the camera around on every kill to the odd intercutting of stock footage that I think is supposed to make a point, but I’m guessing makes the most sense to Danny Boyle himself. The movie is not an island unto itself, of course, and the direction only works as well as it does due to everyone putting in the effort. The cast does well with Alex Garland’s script and the amount of effort that went into the sound design is rather impressive; as are some of the sets and locations, which capture the natural beauty of unspoiled land as well as the unfathomable sadness of how it got that way in the first place.

I enjoyed what the movie had to offer in terms of its style and direction, but sadly that wasn’t enough to sustain me through the entire movie, and I ended up spending the movie waiting for a hook that would never come while at the same time trying not to be a story pedant to no avail. There’s certainly action to be found in the movie as well as a nighttime chase sequence that is easily one of the most beautifully shot scenes in a zombie movie, but the movie has a preponderance for downtime so we can get to know its characters ,and the fact is that the writing is simply average. The characters are well-defined with solid performances across the board, especially the main kid who strikes a good balance between being genuinely aloof and naively so, but they’re mostly cut from familiar archetypes, with the world around them driving most of their actions rather than the other way around. There’s not a lot of opportunity for characters do something unexpected because every moment is a fight for survival, so we end up ticking far too many boxes on the post-apocalypse checklist for it to be trying this hard to engage us with its characters, and frankly it ends up having the opposite effect as I spent far too much time thinking about the boring logistics of the world they’ve established rather than focusing on the themes of the story.

The previous 28 films weren’t above some fantastical moments here and there, but there’s a grounded nature to its setup that feels absent here, despite the film’s aesthetics and tone trying to evoke it. The fact that the British Isles are completely disconnected and post-apocalyptic while the rest of the world has had almost thirty years of being zombie-free is something I find to be very odd. At the very least, you’d have a few corporations, gormless tourists, or earnest documentarians trying to get something out of the land or the survivor communities and showing them cell phones. Perhaps this setup would have made more sense if it was three or even five years after the initial outbreak when the world was still reeling from what had happened, but everyone was committed to the title before a single word of the script was written, so we’re stuck thinking about a lot of unnecessary questions whenever the narrative starts to slow down. Thankfully, the movie picks up considerably in the final act, when Ralph Fiennes shows up and adds some much-needed depth to everyone and everything in his orbit. It definitely would have left this movie off on a high note if the bizarre sequel tease right at the end didn’t throw a wrench in everything, but I guess they had to make some concessions to the modern film industry, and now this is going to be a proper iterative franchise just like everything else right now instead of a somewhat interesting side project for a venerable filmmaker.

At its best, it was only ever going to be a really solid zombie film, but with its unnecessary adherence to a naming convention tied with the sequel teasing, it ends up falling short of being an all-time classic. It’s certainly the most enjoyable of the 28 films, but I expect it to fall out of audience’s minds much sooner rather than later. There’s enough of Danny Boyle’s directorial flair to compensate for how by-the-book the plotting feels, and as much time as I spent thinking about the logistics of the setup, it’s not that much of an issue if you can invest yourself in the characters and action set-pieces. It gets a solid recommendation from me, but don’t be surprise if your mind starts to wander whenever the zombies are on their lunch break.