28 Years Later stinks

28 years later, after the outbreak of an infectious disease that turns humans into zombies, the majority of the British Isles are dead and the few left alive are under strict quarantine living in a post-apocalyptic, isolated landscape. In this third installment of the 28 Days Later franchise, the story follows a 12-year-old boy named Spike, who has lived his entire life in a zombie apocalypse. Spike lives in a homesteading village on an island separated from the mainland of northern England, a community that exists modestly and without modern advances like medicine and cell phones, relying on deadly trips to the mainland where they must battle zombies to find the remnants of resources left by the predecessors who are now dead (or undead).

28 Years Later tries to follow the successful recipe of the first film, which many consider a cult classic, by intercutting archival war footage, using fast camera movements and dramatic angles, all while attempting to comment on the inhumanity of human nature. The reason why the first film worked so well is that it takes the zombie movie genre and pushes it, politically, to ask the audience what they would do if such an atrocity took place — if they would also leave living people, isolated, to kill each other and to die, if it meant that they wouldn’t be impacted. By using real war footage, the first film proves that we are already doing that: living our lives as if war is not all around us, as if people are not killing other people while we continue as if everything is normal.

In the newest film, this political messaging is completely lost, reducing the film to nothing more than another mediocre, hollow zombie movie. While there is nothing wrong with a gory, silly zombie movie, this franchise tried to be something else. Even in this new chapter, the characters in 28 Years Later are constantly facing intense and illogical situations that take us out of the series of fun, gore-filled zombie kills. If the film doesn’t want to continue its discourse, then I wish it would take itself less seriously.

Anyone familiar with the first film in this franchise will be incredibly disappointed by 28 Years Later. The beauty and desperation achieved in the first film is completely disregarded here, partly by over-relying on CGI and artificial digital filters that pull the viewer out of the overly complicated and superfluous plot. There are touching moments in the film between the young Spike and his mother — true moments of sacrifice and love that are in turn ruined by the aesthetic and underdeveloped script. The film fails by trying to do too much, to make a comment on too many different things, and not focus on the originality and creativity of the first film.

Director Danny Boyle’s first foray into the zombie genre in 2002 was incredibly successful and refreshing, using real painting, digital video (DV) cameras and low-budget filmmaking techniques to create a dreamlike world that is bizarre, uncanny and lonely. The 2025 sequel fakes these formal choices, and the unique feeling of early digital filmmaking is completely abandoned. What Boyle seems more concerned with is integrating as many different plot points into the film as he can, possibly to distract from the constant CGI zombie penises and unrealistic set design we’re left with. Integral, climactic scenes are destroyed by ugly prop work and overly CGIed zombies.

After starting so strongly in its first installment, to not develop the franchise’s logic and artistry in this sequel is a complete disappointment. Boyle has an incredible opportunity to advance the first film’s argument in a world that has never needed this conversation more. In 2025, 28 Years Later has an audience living in a world enduring the aftermath of a global pandemic, a climate crisis, genocides and other atrocities. The audience is ripe for these moral questions, and yet the film fails to strengthen its criticality and meet them where they are nearly three decades later. The film’s refusal to adapt to modern reality weakens its credibility and makes the use of archival footage and choppy digital filters inexplicable. Everything that was great about the first film is dead in 28 Years Later. ■

28 Years Later (directed by Danny Boyle)

28 Years Later is now playing in Montreal theatres.

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