Main spoilers for “28 Years Later” observe.
There’s one key bit of knowledge it’s worthwhile to know earlier than you watch “28 Years Later”: it isn’t an entire story. Okay, positive, the movie does have it is personal narrative arc, however that is meant to be the primary of an entire new trilogy of movies. The second, titled “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” is already shot and due out subsequent 12 months. However if you happen to did not know that, you may watch the ending of “28 Years Later” and be completely perplexed. I am nearly constructive some members of my press screening viewers had been oblivious to this data, as I heard a lot of them grumbling and voicing confusion after the movie’s huge climactic second.
That is fairly irritating general, as a result of as I mentioned in my evaluation, “28 Years Later” is fairly rattling nice. The truth is, every part up till the ending works and works exceptionally nicely. After which, director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland tack on an completely wacky closing second meant to arrange the following film. The tone of this scene does not match the remainder of the film in any respect, and it looks like we have unintentionally began watching a very completely different movie.
Briefly, it doesn’t work, and it is certain to confuse some folks.
The 28 Years Later prologue units up the movie’s bizarre ending, and the following film to return
To be honest, the “28 Years Later” ending is not utterly out of left discipline. The seeds for the finale (and what comes subsequent) are planted within the film’s very disturbing prologue. This second jumps again to the start of the outbreak of the Rage virus we noticed within the first movie. We see a gaggle of youngsters someplace within the Scottish Highlands watching “Teletubbies” on TV in a home.
Instantly, chaos erupts as contaminated folks burst in. The mother and father of the children are rapidly dispatched, as are the children themselves. However certainly one of them, a lad named Jimmy, escapes. He runs to a close-by church the place he encounters his father, a priest. Slightly than be afraid of the contaminated, this man of God sees the occasion as a holy, divine second. He provides younger Jimmy a cross after which permits a horde of contaminated ghouls to assault him. Jimmy watches in horror as his father adjustments right into a monster. It is scary stuff! After which the movie jumps ahead … 28 years later.
After this intro, “28 Years Later” zeroes in on utterly completely different characters. Our predominant focus is Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old who lives on a secluded island together with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his mom Isla (Jodie Comer). Nice Britain has successfully been quarantined from the remainder of the world, trapping the hordes of contaminated folks (and people who aren’t contaminated) inside, and Spike and his household reside in peace, secluded from the mainland and its contaminated ghouls.
Jimmy returns within the closing moments of 28 Years Later
All through the movie, we get a reminder about Jimmy through some graffiti scrawled on a wall and his identify carved into the chest of an contaminated individual (confusingly sufficient, Cillian Murphy’s character within the first movie, “28 Days Later,” is additionally named Jim, however these are clearly not meant to be the identical individual). The implication is that Jimmy is on the market, someplace.
Isla is affected by a mysterious sickness, and Spike decides to take her on a harmful journey by means of the contaminated mainland to search out a health care provider (Ralph Fiennes) to assist remedy her. Alongside the way in which, Spike and Isla rescue a child birthed by an contaminated lady (the child seems uninfected). Ultimately, they discover the physician, who sadly tells them that Isla has most cancers and she or he’ll die quickly — and she or he does, peacefully.
After Isla’s loss of life, Spike drops the child off again at his island neighborhood however opts to go out into the mainland on his personal and discover. Boyle and Garland ought to have ended the movie right here. As a substitute, there is a actually wacky scene the place Spike is rescued from a horde of contaminated by a gang of goofballs sporting brightly coloured tracksuits (the colours of their garments mirror the colours of the Teletubbies). This group does a bunch of backflips and parkour strikes and kills the group of contaminated, after which the chief of the gang (performed by “Sinners” vampire Jack O’Connell) introduces himself to Spike: his identify is Jimmy! You already know, like the child initially of the film! Roll credit.
O’Connell is clearly having enjoyable in his transient scene, however his character feels so unusual — and his unusual apparel, which appears to be a direct reference to infamous English TV persona Jimmy Savile, stands out like a sore thumb. Will this make sense within the subsequent film? Most likely. However right here, it feels utterly misplaced and it hurts an in any other case robust movie. It is one other instance of recent motion pictures not understanding that they’ll inform one full story with out organising an entire franchise. I am to see the place the story goes from right here (it appears clear that although Jimmy and his gang helped Spike, he is in all probability dangerous information), however “28 Years Later” didn’t want to finish like this.
