28 Years Later
I just got home from watching the 28 Years Later with my dad and I have some conflicting feelings. Just as another warning THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS POST go see the movie first if you want. Also, I am in no way a movie critic, this is all just my opinion
The Build Up
Before actually getting into the movie I think I should give some context on my perspective coming into it. Firstly, 28 Days Later (the first in this franchise) is probably my favorite zombie movie ever, if not my favorite piece of zombie media. Typically Iām really skeptical about reboots (which Iām not really sure you can call this one?) but nonetheless the marketing campaign for this movie pushed me beyond that initial doubt. The trailer for 28 Years Later is absolutely stunning and got me so excited for the movie. I also found this animation on social media. Iām not sure if this was a part of the official marketing campaign or not but it solidified in me that I needed to see this movie.
The Movie
Last warning, spoilers beyond this point. Anyways, the movie was so so good for like the first 60% of it. Even throughout the movie, anytime the infected were on screen it was extremely intense and I think the infected were done so well in this movie. Working off of the build up, I think this movie suffered the same fate as Long Legs, where the marketing was so well done that the movie would have to be a masterpiece to live up to what the trailer set up. 28 Years Later was not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasnāt great and at times it was very goofy (especially the ending).
The movie follows Spike, a 12-year-old boy, his mother Isla, and for part of the movie, his father Jamie. They live in a small community of survivors on a island right off the coast of the British Isles, which is on indefinite quarantine while the rest of the world moves on. Seemingly a right of passage on this island is for a son and his father to brave the mainland and kill an infected or two before returning home. Spike and Jamie go off on this quest to the applause and praise of the rest of the island. Once on the mainland Spike gets his first kill and the two start seeing some concerning things such as a man hung left to die and a deer carcass with its head ripped off and displayed on a nearby tree. This spooks Jamie and prompts the two to try and head home early. They just barely escape and get home after encountering whats called an āalphaā which is just a more clever, mutated infected.
This arc with Jamie and Spike is my absolute favorite in the movie. The shots were absolutely gorgeous of them in the forests and the infected reminded me of the Nurgle from Warhammer 40k. Each scene in this arc felt so intimate and intense and I think the hit the nail on the head with the ādeeper meaningā at this point in the movie. Up to this point, the movie was trying to portray the generations of wartime, tough guy pride the British have. With the sending off in the beginning and the subsequent coming home party, the movie was trying to draw parallels with young men being sent off to war in the world wars and even middle ages to pride and applause, only to immediately be hit with the horrors of war. Once the two are home, there is even a coming home party where Spikeās father is making grandiose claims about Spikeās skill (i.e. creating a mythos for him, much like in the middle ages). This same trope shows up in other media like Attack on Titan and All Quiet on the Western Front but I think they did it really well and in a really unique way in this post-apocalyptic world. I think that this part of the movie shouldāve taken up more runtime. If they just stuck with this theme through the entire movie I think I wouldāve absolutely loved it, but unfortunately, the narrative and themes were a bit disjointed through the movie, and I think they clung more onto a weak storyline rather than theming.
The next āarcā had to do with Spike secretly bringing his sick mother Isla to the mainland to find this seemingly insane doctor to try and cure her. This was the plot line for the rest of the movie which I thought was pretty weak. After a few more encounters with the alpha and other infected, Spike gets her mother to the doctor. He doesnāt come off as crazed as his father previously described (which I personally think is a missed opportunity) and tries to help her. She is promptly checked out and is told she has cancer (wow, so original), and she asks to be killed by the doctor.
Truly, even though this arc is most of the movie, theres not much to talk about. Everything is just kind of taken at face value and the only ādeeper meaningā I can think of for this part is the right to a dignified death for the mother? But honestly, nothing really worth analyzing story-wise. There was also this Swedish navy-man who I neglected to mention, but he died almost immediately. There was also a baby that was birthed from one of the infected, but literally added nothing to the story so I didnāt mention her either.
The ending to this movie was probably the craziest and goofiest Iāve seen since watching Moonfall as a joke. So this movie ends with Spike becoming his own man (overarching coming of age theme) and leaving the island to find a life for himself. Heās being chased my these infected and is cornered between the infected overwhelming him and fallen concrete on the road. He seems to be at the end of his rope, when suddenly, six men in colorful Adidas track suits and matching wigs pop up from behind the concrete to slay the infected. This is not a joke. They then pounce on the oncoming infected with Ninja Turtle type weapons and using karate. Once again, not joking. Theyāre doing front flips and stuff. All of them are named Jimmy. Apparently, this is supposed to be some cult to the British media personality Jimmy Savile. If you gave me 100 guesses to how this movie ended I still would not have gotten it correct.
What It Did Well, What It Didnāt
Honestly, the more I sit here and write this, the more I realize I really did like the movie. I think my biggest issue was (obviously) the ending. It just gave me such whiplash and with it being the ending, it was the first thing I was thinking about. But other than that, I didnāt have too many outright issues with the movie. I think what frustrated me though was how many different ways they couldāve taken the movie. In this movie alone, they introduced these characters, the fact that the infected were now mutating, that there are others living on the mainland, and even that the rest of the world had gone back to normal. Of all of these, they decided to go with the storyline about his mother having cancer and dying. We could have made this storyline a standalone movie that didnāt need to have cool zombies. If I was given the power, I would have explored the avenue of how the infected have mutated over time, and used it as an excuse for some more Nurgle-like body horror. I think even the storyline of meeting other mainland survivors wouldāve been more interesting (although this trope is overdone in zombie movies).
Although the story issues, 28 Years Later was gorgeous. The shots and editing was absolutely spot on. The sets were amazing, and perfectly capture that horror of surviving in both the beauty and grotesque-ness nature can provide. I noticed that the greens in the movie were very sharp, which I think contributed to the beauty of the forest shots and contrasted really nicely with the blood and guts of the action sequences color-wise. I also knew beforehand from an interview that the director decided to go with a wider aspect-ratio and agree with him that it made the sets feel vast and like anything could be hiding out there.
I honestly didnāt think Iād write this much about the movie (sorry for the yap). Even with its flaws, the actions was amazing and kept me locked in when it happened, the story was so-so at times but the cinematography was gorgeous. If I had to give 28 Years Later a rating, itād be a 6.5/10.