28 Days Later was a fantastic film on its own, but it was also prominent because it kicked off the zombie craze that engulfed TV, movies, comic books, video games, and books afterwards. Considering there's still a The Walking Dead spin-off TV series currently airing on AMC (they go to New York City!) and an HBO show based on a video game about the undead, The Last of Us, that just ended its second season, the zombie craze hasn't entirely dissipated. After 2002, though, when 28 Days Later came out, it's kind of hard to even remember how ensconced zombies were in media. Dawn of the Dead was re-made and then George Romero returned from obscurity to direct two new zombie movies. The Walking Dead comic book spawned what was, at one point, the #1 watched TV show. There were zombie comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. This was all thanks to a fairly low-budget horror film with no big stars that came out of nowhere.
There was a sequel made, 28 Weeks Later, that was made with a different director, writer, and cast. And now there's a new sequel with the original creators returning. This would probably feel like a big deal, but lately, sequels and returns to age-old films and TV shows seemingly happen all the time. I never in my wildest dreams thought we'd ever see a new Twin Peaks, Willow, Evil Dead, The Dark Crystal, or Star Wars with the original cast, but they all happened. And, sadly, while it was nice to see them return, none of them re-captured the originality or magic of the originals. Danny Boyle, who directed 28 Days Later, has also not made a good movie in a long time, and his Trainspotting sequel was an embarrassment. Alex Garland, the 28 Days Later writer, has made some great films since 2002, like 2014's Ex/Machina and last year's Civil War. He's also worked on some original, interesting projects like Annihilation and Devs. It'd be curious to see what these two, returning to work together for the first time in 23 years, would even cook up for a sequel to their famous, non-zombie film (it's a rage virus, not zombies, or so they say).
28 Years Later takes place 28 years after the original, when the rage virus outbreak turned England into the zombie apocalypse. I remember seeing 28 Days Later in theaters and loving it, and I also remember loving the plot twist. Cillian Murphy played Jim in the first film, a man that awakes from a coma in a hospital in London to find that nobody is around because zombies have taken over. The twist has him hiding in the woods and suddenly seeing a commercial airliner flying high up in the sky going about it's business as if there isn't a zombie apocalypse going on. The twist is that the zombies are only in England because it's an island. The rest of the world is perfectly fine. Cut to the new film, which conveniently forgets that 28 Weeks Later was ever made (it doesn't exist in this "universe"), and we have England/Scotland still quarantined off from the rest of the world. There's an island off the coast of Scotland, though, that has a village of people still alive and cut off from the rest of the world. They can get to the mainland to gather supplies and fight off zombies if they want by walking along a path that goes underwater during high tide. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer play a husband a wife that live on this small island. Their son, who is the star of the film, is played by Alfie Williams. The father takes his son to hunt in zombie infested Scotland to kick start the film.
The one thing I can say about this sequel is that it feels like Alex Garland and Danny Boyle only wanted to make a sequel if they had complete control to go bat shit crazy on it. It's almost as if they were bored over the years with the idea of making just a typical, run-of-the-mill, people-get-chased-by-zombies picture...so they decided to finally make it by going bonkers with it and throw everything and anything at the wall. While there are, in fact, scenes of people being chased by zombies, there are also oddities like Ralph Fiennes building towers of bones while covering himself in human blood but also staying cheery and friendly to all (even the zombies), a group of survivors that are dressed like the infamous British child molester, Jimmy Saville, that also fight in over-the-top kung-fu style like The Power Rangers, and there's a zombie giving birth to a healthy baby.
Seriously, you'll finish watching this film thinking to yourself: 'What the fuck?'
Is that a good thing, though? It certainly makes this film interesting and something you can talk and argue about.
Alex Garland wrote and directed a film a few years ago titled Men that featured a creature giving birth over and over again. Garland being involved in a creatively weird film isn't exactly a newsflash. Danny Boyle of course made his bones putting bombastic scenes on film, like Ewan McGregor climbing out of a toilet in Trainspotting. I guess it's not surprising that this film is shocking in an absurd way, as creatively these two have made films in the past that weren't exactly traditional, safe, popcorn fare.
Early on in the film, when the father and son are cautiously running through the forest in Scotland, there are scenes from Laurence Olivier's Henry V edited in for no apparent reason, as is the reading of a Rudyard Kipling poem in voice-over. The zombie kills by bow and arrow are also shot in a freeze-frame, slow-mo video game style. At least early on, this editing technique reminded me of Natural Born Killers, which used various film stock and clips from different TV shows and movies to create a hallucinogenic, off-kilter effect. It doesn't entirely work here, as the whole film isn't edited like that, although the score, which at times feels like a weird, DJ reverb song, is effective and quite brilliant. All of this makes the film at least feel vibrant and different. The big problem with all of this is the film also feels jarring in that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. When a group of track suit, kung-fu, Jimmy Saville/Power Rangers dressed men and women show up to take out zombies in brutally, sadistic fashion, are we supposed to guffaw with laughter? And this comes right after someone mourns the death of a family member in a somber, cry-inducing sequence. The whiplash effect of ridiculousness and horror/sadness make this movie an interesting mess but not on par with the original, which was scary, fresh, kinetic, alive, dramatic, and excellent.
Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes give good performances in this film, although Jodie Comer, who was great in Killing Eve, doesn't get much to do here. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is adequate as the tough-as-nails father figure, but he seems to be sidelined for the most part after the beginning. And there's one character that shows up and then disappears fairly quickly, probably because they needed an action sequence involving him so the movie doesn't get too boring.
The big bad in the film, a seemingly unkillable zombie muscle man, isn't scary, which is a problem. It is a problem that he's unkillable and can control birds, but none of this is explained. This may be because there's a sequel to this that's already been filmed, written by Garland and directed by Nia DaCosta, and supposedly there's another sequel ready to be made starring Cillian Murphy if these two films make money at the box office.
There are some great shots in this film, like the big bad zombie standing by a tree alone in a field. The action sequences, like the chase along the path while the tide is rising, is propulsive. The editing and music make the movie unique and watchable and, while it's not a great film or anything, it's a curiosity that's at least never dull.
Like all sequels and re-makes, though, this one just makes you long to watch the original, which wasn't really anything new, but was an exciting, wild, scary, horror film. This one is watchable and entertaining for the most part but also too ridiculous and too weird, which, honestly, seems to be what they were out to make in the first place. **1/2
