28 Years Lat­er review – Dan­ny Boyle is final­ly back

Like a rabid zom­bie with a wan­ton desire to gorge mind­less­ly on its prey, film­mak­er Dan­ny Boyle has got a bloody sweet tooth for nos­tal­gia late­ly. From pub­licly despoil­ing a cop­per-bot­tomed cult clas­sic for cringey call-back kicks (Trainspot­ting 2), to appeas­ing the ​“gold” radio crowd (Yes­ter­day) and refram­ing the punk era as a dress­ing-up box far­ra­go (TV series Pis­tol), he’s drawn heed­less­ly to the amber glow of youth and hap­pi­er, more fruit­ful times of days yonder.

You might deduce a hint of auto­bi­og­ra­phy, then, in his new film 28 Years Lat­er, which intro­duces a closed soci­ety of Northum­bri­an island dwellers who have expe­ri­enced no tech­no­log­i­cal or social evo­lu­tion since the ini­tial out­break of the Rage virus that was doc­u­ment­ed in 2002’s frisky genre hit, 28 Days Lat­er. A benign form of social­ism has tak­en over, and this close-knit group of sur­vivors have been able to sub­sist and per­sist via col­lec­tive endeav­our and unself­con­scious empa­thy, shar­ing food and sup­plies and embrac­ing a lev­el of full-tilt social equal­i­ty that would have a Tory grandee scoff­ing into his kedgeree. 

The British main­land, mean­while, has been left to fes­ter, now a glob­al no-go ter­ri­to­ry and under strict quar­an­tine from Europe (sound famil­iar?). While many of the infect­ed have also suc­cumbed to the rav­ages of time, some have also evolved into a super­charged breed that, with their non-ver­bal yowl­ing and dis­taste for cloth­ing, resem­ble a new iter­a­tion of pre-his­toric man. And lead­ing the packs are the dan­ger­ous new ​“alpha” vari­ants, immune to the slings and arrows of the islanders and appar­ent­ly the prod­uct of steroids present in the orig­i­nal strain.

Where the orig­i­nal film leached on the bleed­ing edge aes­thet­ics of the Dogme 95 move­ment, with its use of con­sumer grade dig­i­tal cam­eras to immerse us in all the blood-vom­it­ing detail of the urban apoc­a­lypse, this new one opts for a mix of clas­si­cal high def­i­n­i­tion vis­tas as best to empha­sise the bucol­ic splen­dor of north­ern Eng­land. Yet there’s still great glee tak­en in hav­ing us mon­i­tor the explo­sive exit wounds caused by arrows hit­ting their tar­gets direct­ly in the face.

The sto­ry fol­lows 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) whose lov­ing, bur­ley pops Jamie (Aaron Tay­lor-John­son) is mak­ing him an extra large fry-up this morn­ing, as he’s head­ing to the main­land for his first for­ag­ing mis­sion. Upstairs, his ail­ing mum Isla (Jodie Com­er) writhes around in bed, suf­fer­ing from an ill­ness that no-one can diag­nose or assist with, as there is no-one with med­ical train­ing on the island. 

With­out going into too much detail, the film is as fer­vent in its love for the NHS and socialised med­ical pro­vi­sion as was Boyle’s 2012 Olympic open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, prais­ing the pres­ence of doc­tors even when they don’t have the tools to help those who are suf­fer­ing. And it also offers a sting­ing cri­tique of all those who active­ly yearn for the halt of progress, and what we see here is the hor­ri­ble upshot of what a coun­try would look like if indeed the clocks were to grind to a halt. 

The first half of the film sees Spike and Jamie tooled up and ready to do bat­tle with the infect­ed, while the sec­ond focus­es on the son’s attempts to find some relief for his moth­er. There are a num­ber of ref­er­ences and influ­ences at play, includ­ing fan­ta­sy fran­chise build­ing like The Hunger Games movies, and some of the more out­ré mod­ern folk hor­ror offer­ings, such as those by Ben Wheat­ley. Screen­writer Alex Gar­land is some­one who has been vocal in his love and respect for mod­ern video games, and the dynam­ic here, with the insis­tent­ly pater­nal father clash­ing with the rebel­lious son, feels like an homage to the 2018 title God of War.

There are lit­tle sug­ges­tions of alle­go­ry and satire in the mix, but Gar­land has this time man­aged to find a nice sweet spot where mean­ing and mes­sage don’t choke the sto­ry as a whole. Boyle, mean­while, shows us some of the old mag­ic in the var­i­ous action set pieces, espe­cial­ly the ones where the alpha and its mighty, swing­ing mem­ber become involved. Tonal­ly, the film is all over the shop, but nev­er to the point where things don’t feel flu­id or coher­ent. Anachro­nism is used for humour, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a cli­mac­tic scene which, for this view­er, might be con­sid­ered one of the most jaw-drop­ping and bold in recent mem­o­ry. A mic-drop moment par excel­lence. 

It’s a film which man­ages to have its daft thrills and con­vinc­ing­ly piv­ot to wist­ful philo­soph­i­cal intro­spec­tion, and while there are cer­tain­ly some rough edges and unex­plored plot avenues, it prob­a­bly counts as one of Boyle’s strongest works this cen­tu­ry. This one needs to do num­bers to ensure that the entire tril­o­gy comes to fruition (Nia DaCosta’s sec­ond instal­ment is in the can and arriv­ing ear­ly 2026), and we can hon­est­ly say some­thing now that we haven’t been able to say for a long time: Dan­ny deserves your dosh.

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