28 Years Later (2025)

28 Years Later is my most anticipated film of 2025. I came to the 28 universe if you can call it that quite late cause gory horror wasn't my thing until quite late in life. I really like 28 Days and think that it deserves the praise that it got. It is perhaps Danny Boyle’s best film if not in his top 3. I quite like 28 Weeks Later even though it's not a patch on ‘Days’. 28 Years Later follows the growing recent trend of long time sequels. This is the first of an intended trilogy, we are getting Part 2 in January 2026 and on the basis of this film we will get the third one probably in late 2026. 

The film starts off with the Teletubbies playing and it reminded me of Warfare (co-directed by Alex Garland) where the soldiers are dancing to ‘Call on Me’ and it was that film saying that this was about as upbeat as the film would get (which was true) and I felt like the Teletubbies was Danny Boyle’s version of that. The film says straight away that they are going to pull no punches because about 8 kids are killed by the infected. Only one manages to survive and this was the first of many times that I found myself saying ‘bloody hell’. 

The film centres around Spike (played by Alfie Williams) who along with his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are on a little island with other residents that can only be reached by a causeway. Whoever thought that Alfie Williams was the right person to play such an important role deserves a huge bonus because he is brilliant. When he has to place his recently dead mother’s skull on the big pile it was such a sad moment and if you dont feel something for him then you might need to check for a pulse. He has to carry the second half of the film and when Spike is being trained to go hunting but he is very young and doesn't quite make it work but by the end of the film he has grown and becomes better with the bow and arrow. I have never been the biggest fan of Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I don't think he’s terrible but he just seems to pick terrible films (i’m looking at you Kraven the Hunter). He starts off quite likeable at the beginning as he is trying to teach his son how to survive in a world that must be quite scary and the film then makes you change your opinion on him when he sneaks off with another woman and then strikes Spike when he tries to stand up to him. He doesn't feature in the second half so it will be interesting to see where his story ends up.  His mother Isla (played by Jodie Comer) is not well and spends the first half of the film in bed and its the second half where Comer shows how good she is. The role isnt the strongest but Comer makes it feel genuine and you feel more sad for Spike when she keeps calling her son Dad. I am slightly disappointed by the fact that she doesn't make it to the end of the proposed trilogy but it does serve as the main reason why Spike grows up and becomes a man even though only a few weeks have passed by the end of the film.

Ralph Fiennes is very good as Dr Kelson. He is painted pretty much like a certain US President and it did generate some giggles in my screening. He is portrayed by the islanders as a madman but he is anything but and he has built the skull display that you see in the trailer. He gets very little screen time but it is suggested that he survives so he may appear in future instalments. I hope so because Fiennes is fun to watch as Kelson and his skills might be useful to the inhabitants of the island.  Edvin Ryding plays Erik who is literally introduced so that after a few minutes he is killed and his skull is ripped from his body. He is a little bit annoying for the brief time that he is on screen but at least his death is quite good.

It is worth pointing out Chi Lewis-Parry who plays Alpha who seems to be the main villain of the film and is way more powerful than most infected and he can only be stopped with a tranquilliser. It’s a performance with no dialogue yet is very menacing. He is responsible for a couple of quite gory deaths and I do mean gory because he rips people's skulls off their bodies with their spinal column still attached. 

The film ends with the young boy from the beginning now a grown up and we get a bizarre fight scene which did remind me of A Clockwork Orange and we have seen references to Jimmy throughout the film and he is clearly going to feature quite heavily in the next one (maybe the third). This is the second performance from Jack O’Connell in 2025 that I have thought was really good. Unlike Sinners, he is only in this briefly and I cant wait to see what O’Connell does in the next one. 

I think some people might be disappointed with the fact there is no Cillian Murphy (even though he is credited as an Executive Producer). Danny Boyle has said in repeated interviews that Murphy isn't in this film and whilst there was always the chance that Boyle and Alex Garland were trying to do a bluff but Murphy is definitely not in it and that works in the films favour because it means that we can focus on new characters and by the time that he does appear then we have characters that we care about and are interested in. Overall I really liked this film. I don't know whether it's better than Days because it was made at a different time but this is definitely one of my favourite films of the year. I had high expectations and they were definitely met. It's a good thing that we only have six months to wait for part two and I really hope we get part three.