Most movies are lucky to predict one thing. Danny Boyle鈥檚 2002 dystopian thriller 鈥�28 Days Later鈥� managed to be on the cutting edge of two trends, albeit rather disparate ones: global pandemic and fleet-footed zombies.
Add in , who had his breakout role in that film, and 鈥�28 Days Later鈥� was unusually prognostic. While many of us were following the beginnings of the Afghanistan War and 鈥淎merican Idol,鈥� Boyle and screenwriter were probing the the fragile fabric of society, and the potentially very quick way, indeed, horror might come our way.
Boyle always maintained that his undead 鈥� a far speedier variety of the slow-stepping monsters of George A. Romero鈥檚 鈥淭he Night of Living Dad鈥� 鈥� weren鈥檛 zombies, at all, but were simply the infected. In that film, and its 2007 sequel 鈥�28 Weeks Later鈥� (which Juan Carlos Fresnadillo helmed), the filmmakers have followed the fallout of the so-called rage virus, which emptied London in the first film and brought soon-dashed hopes of the virus鈥� eradication in the second movie.
Like the virus, the 鈥�28 Days Later鈥� franchise has proven tough to beat back. In the new 鈥�28 Years Later,鈥� Boyle and Garland return to their apocalyptic pandemic with the benefit of now having lived through one. But recent history plays a surprisingly minor role in this far-from-typical, willfully shambolic, intensely scattershot part three.
The usual trend of franchises is to progressively add gloss and scale. But where other franchises might have gone global, 鈥�28 Years Later鈥� has remained in the U.K., now a quarantine region where the infected roam free and survivors 鈥� or at least the ones we follow 鈥� cluster on an island off the northeast of Britain, connected to mainland by only a stone causeway that dips below the water at high tide.
Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, who innovatively employed digital video in 鈥�28 Days Later,鈥� have also turned to iPhones to shoot the majority of the film. Boyle, the 鈥淪lumdog Millionaire,鈥� 鈥淭rainspotting鈥� filmmaker, is an especially frenetic director to begin with, but 鈥�28 Years Later鈥� is frequently gratingly disjointed.
It鈥檚 a visual approach that, taken with the story鈥檚 tonal extremes, makes 鈥�28 Years Later鈥� an often bumpy ride. But even when Boyle鈥檚 film struggles to put the pieces together, there鈥檚 an admirable resistance to being anything like a cardboard cutout summer movie.
The recent event that hovers over 鈥�28 Years Later鈥� is less the COVID-19 pandemic than . With the virus quarantined on Britain, the country has been severed from the European continent. On the secluded Holy Island, 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams, a newcomer with some sweetness and pluck) lives with his hunter father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and bedridden mother, Isla (Jodie Comer).
The scene, with makeshift watchtowers and bows and arrows for weapons, is almost medieval. Jamie, too, feels almost like a knight eager to induct his son into the village鈥檚 ways of survival. On Spike鈥檚 first trip out off the island, his father 鈥� nauseatingly jocular 鈥� helps him kill his first infected. Back inside the village walls, Jamie celebrates their near scrapes and exaggerates his son鈥檚 coolness under pressure. Other developments cause Spike to question the macho world he鈥檚 being raised in.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e all lyin鈥�, mum,鈥� he says to his mother.
After hearing of a far-off, supposedly deranged doctor whose constant fires mystify the townspeople, Spike resolves to take his mother to him in hopes of healing her unknown illness. Their encounters along the way are colorful. Ralph Fiennes plays the doctor, orange-colored when they encounter him; Edvin Ryding plays a Swedish NATO soldier whose patrol boat crashed offshore. Meanwhile, Comer is almost comically delusional, frequently calling her son 鈥淒addy.鈥�
And the infected? One development here is that, while some remain Olympic-worthy sprinters, other slothful ones nicknamed 鈥淪low-Lows鈥� crawl around on the ground, rummaging for worms.
Buried in here are some tender reflections on mortality and misguided exceptionalism, and even the hint of those ideas make 鈥�28 Years Later鈥� a more thoughtful movie than you鈥檙e likely to find at the multiplex this time of year. This is an unusually soulful coming-of-age movie considering the number of spinal cords that get ripped right of bodies.
It's enough to make you admire the stubborn persistence of Boyle in these films, which he's already extending. The already-shot 鈥�28 Days Later: The Bone Temple鈥� is coming next near, from director Nia DaCosta, while Boyle hopes 鈥�28 Years Later鈥� is the start of trilogy. Infection and rage, it turns out, are just too well suited to our times to stop now.
鈥�28 Years Later,鈥� a Sony Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for strong bloody violence, grisly images, graphic nudity, language and brief sexuality. Running time: 115 minutes. Two stars out of four.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
