One cool factor about 28 Years Later, the brand new Danny Boyle-directed sequel to his horror traditional 28 Days Later, is that it’s the uncommon quasi-legacy sequel that requires virtually no prep work. The film options no characters carrying over from the unique; the opening playing cards informing you that Britain was overtaken by a fast-spreading “rage” virus (principally newfangled viral zombiefication), strictly quarantined from the remainder of Europe, and now it’s (sure) 28 years later, is absolutely all it’s essential to know, because the film introduces an entire new set of characters and circumstances. You’ll most likely get extra out of it should you’ve seen the primary film, however it’s in no way mandatory.
Then once more, isn’t some self-assigned movie-watching homework type of enjoyable? One thing else that’s cool in regards to the 28 collection is how little it takes to meet up with the entire thing. There was an authentic movie launched within the U.S. in 2003, and lengthy out of circulation on streaming, now obtainable to lease digitally once more; and 28 Weeks Later, a little-remembered sequel to that movie launched in 2007, which is much more accessible. It’s at present streaming on Hulu (which implies, sure, you probably have a Disney+/Hulu bundle, there are zombies in your Disney+) and on the folks’s streamer, Tubi.
Why Watch 28 Weeks Later Tonight?
First, earlier than even entering into the movie’s high quality or its connection to its predecessor or unofficial follow-up, there’s that uncommon older-movie pleasure of watching one thing that now retroactively has an all-star forged. Again in 2007, essentially the most notable factor in regards to the 28 Weeks Later forged listing is that it didn’t embrace Cillian Murphy or Naomie Harris, leaving their characters’ destiny comparatively ambiguous, and that it had Boyle favourite Robert Carlyle (Begbie from Trainspotting) in a number one function, regardless that Boyle didn’t return to direct. In 2025, it’s full of acquainted faces. However we’ll get to that.
The story begins with a harrowing sequence (apparently guest-directed by Boyle himself!) set throughout the preliminary “rage virus” outbreak the place a husband (Carlyle) panics and leaves his spouse to die by the hands of marauding zombies. (Their youngsters, they’ve simply revealed, are safely touring abroad.) The film initially follows Carlyle’s character reuniting with these children, you guessed it, 28 months later, after the virus has seemingly been crushed again and England is re-opening after a protracted quarantine. There’s a grim, virtually George Costanza-esque shock ready, nevertheless: The spouse he guiltily thought he deserted is definitely alive, and capable of inform their shocked and disgusted youngsters the entire story.
It seems, the spouse has the fashion virus, however is mysteriously immune, which explains why she is each alive, and capable of (whoops!) hold that zombie virus spreading, child! As we noticed within the first movie, the an infection strikes with terrifying pace, remodeling its host inside minutes. And that’s one of many weirdest issues about 28 Weeks Later: It’s a sequel structured as if it’s selecting up from status-quo ending of the earlier film, determining how you can convey the virus again after it was defeated. However that’s not how 28 Days Later truly ends, so the film expends lots of power explaining that now the virus is usually gone, after which explaining the way it got here again, all of which leaves the film… kind of in the identical spot as if it had picked up the real establishment of the sooner movie. It’s bizarre!
But it surely’s additionally compelling. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo takes a unique stylistic strategy than Boyle’s smeary digital video, capturing on celluloid for a decidedly completely different texture, and tells a unique type of story, intersecting the Seinfeld-ish familial mishap with U.S. army personnel who’ve come to assist supervise England’s re-population efforts. (It might be sketchy, however it’s much less sketchy than the repopulation plan tried by military guys within the first film.) That’s the place the film introduces Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, and Idris Elba, all earlier than they have been as well-known as they’re now; Imogen Poots can be available to play certainly one of Carlyle’s children, and Harold Perrineau (most likely best-known, then and now, for Misplaced) seems as a pilot.
And as a ticking-clock action-horror film with a reputation forged, 28 Months Later is kind of good, with the advantage of not being fairly as acquainted as 28 Days Later. It’s scary and thrilling, and most of the place it falls in need of the unique is in an space that’s tough to manage: Boyle’s film in some way feels practically as present at the moment because it did twenty years in the past, by accident evoking all types of real-life horrors, from 9/11 to COVID-19 to social rage. 28 Weeks Later brings up some thorny interpersonal points with Carlyle’s storyline, and has moments clearly harking back to then-current numerous U.S. occupations within the Center East in its again half, however it doesn’t dig particularly deep on any of it. It feels, to some extent, of its time quite than timeless.
That most likely explains why it’s extra of a footnote within the apparently growing collection mythology; the brand new film doesn’t decanonize something from 28 Weeks Later, however it walks again the film’s bleak ending to some extent. (Mainly, it quantities to an undoing of an undoing of an undoing… one thing like that.) However then, that additionally permits this half-forgotten center movie to face extra by itself. It’s not required viewing to know 28 Years Later; it’s curiosity viewing for followers of horror, zombies, and/or Jeremy Renner.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a author residing in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s an everyday contributor to The A.V. Membership, Polygon, and The Week, amongst others.
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