Big spoilers for “28 years later” follow.
There is an important piece of information you need to know before looking at “28 years later”: It is not a complete story. Okay, surely, the movie has its own story arch, but this is supposed to be the first of a whole new trilogy of movies. The second, entitled “28 years later: The Bone Temple,” is already shot and will be out next year. But if you didn’t know it, you can see the end of “28 years later” and be completely confused. I am almost positive that some members of my press screening group were unaware of this information, because I heard that many of them mumbled and expressed confusion after the film’s great climatic moments.
This is quite frustrating overall, because as I said in my review, “28 years later” is pretty damn good. In fact, everything until the end works and works exceptionally well. And then, director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland thank a completely crazy last moment intended to cancel the next movie. The tone of this scene does not match the rest of the movie at all, and it feels like we accidentally started watching a completely different movie.
In short, it does not work, and it is safe to confuse some people.
The 28 years later the prologue sets up the strange end of the film and the next movie to come
To be fair, it is the “28 years later” ending not completely outside the left field. Seeds for the final (and what comes thereafter) are planted in the film’s very disturbing prologue. This moment jumps back to the beginning of the outbreak of the furious virus we saw in the first film. We see a group of children somewhere in the Scottish Highlands watching “Teletubbies” on TV in a house.
Suddenly, chaos breaks when infected people burst in. The parents of the children are sent quickly, as are the children themselves. But one of them, a boy named Jimmy, flees. He runs to a nearby church where he meets his father, a priest. Instead of being afraid of the infected, this man of God sees the event as a sacred, divine moment. He gives young Jimmy a cross and then allows a horde of infected ghouls to attack him. Jimmy looks at terror as his father changes to a monster. It’s scary stuff! And then the movie jumps forward … 28 years later.
After this intro, “28 years later” zero “into completely different characters. Our main focus is Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old who lives on a secluded island with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his mother Isla (Jodie Comer). The UK has effectively been quarantined from the rest of the world and caught the rest of the world. And his family lives in peace, secluded from the mainland and its infected ghouls.
Jimmy returns in the last moments 28 years later
Throughout the movie we get a reminder of Jimmy via some graffiti scraped on a wall and his name carved in the chest of an infected person (confusing enough, Cillian Murphy’s character in the first movie, “28 days later,” is also is called Jim, but these are obviously not meant to be the same person). The implication is that Jimmy is out, somewhere.
Isla suffers from a mysterious disease, and Spike decides to take her on a dangerous journey through the infected mainland to find a doctor (Ralph Fiennes) to help cure her. Along the way, Spike and Isla save a child born by an infected woman (the child seems uninfected). Eventually, they find the doctor, who unfortunately tells them that Isla has cancer and she will die soon – and she makes it peaceful.
After Isla’s death, Spike releases the child back on his island society but chooses to go out on the mainland on its own and explore. Boyle and Garland bark Have finished the movie here. Instead, there is a truly crazy stage where Spike is rescued from a horde infected by a bunch of goofballs that wear colorful training suits (the colors of their clothes reflect the colors of the telecommunications). This group makes a bunch of backflips and parkour movements and kills the group of infected, and then the leader of the gang (Played by “Sinners” Vampire Jack O’Connell) Introducing himself to Spike: His name is Jimmy! You know, like the child at the beginning of the movie! Credit.
O’Connell obviously has fun in his short scene, but his character feels so Strange – and his strange attire, which seems to be a direct reference to the notorious English TV personality Jimmy Savile, stands out like a sore thumb. Will this be meaningful in the next movie? Probably. But here it feels completely in place and it makes an otherwise strong movie. It is another example that modern movies do not understand that they can tell a Complete history without creating a whole franchise. I am interested in seeing where the story goes from here (it seems clear that even though Jimmy and his gang helped Spike, he is probably Bad news), but “28 years later” didn’t have to end like this.
