10/07/2025
"28 Years Later" by Danny Boyle (2025)
I know the discourse on this one is divisive as hell, but here’s where I landed: I loved it. Every second of it. Which shocked me, honestly.
Stylistically, this movie leans into everything I usually don’t like—shaky cam, rapid edits, iPhone and drone footage. But somehow? It all works. In lesser hands, it would’ve been a gimmick. In Danny Boyle’s, it becomes immersive. It feels like someone’s documenting the apocalypse with whatever’s left—every frame soaked in urgency and dread. And those freeze-frame kills are unreal.
Technically, this thing rips. The score, the sound design, the editing—Boyle hasn’t lost a step. If anything, he’s become even more daring.
The story won’t work for everyone, but it really worked for me. The first act is such a strong reintroduction, with Spike’s arrival on the mainland and Jamie’s (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) volatile meltdown setting the tone. I loved that eerie montage with the Kipling poem—it was chilling. Act 2 gives us some of Jodie Comer’s best work, especially during that emotionally brutal birthing scene. She’s so damn good in this.
And the final act? Unexpected, moving, and not the obvious ending you think it’s building toward. It felt honest. Messy, but earned. And I liked the “Memento Mori” / “Memento Amoris” themes more than I expected.
Shoutout to Alfie Williams as Spike—his first big role and he kills it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is terrifying and heartbreaking. Comer’s phenomenal, period. And Ralph Fiennes is amazing, because Ralph Fiennes.
I get why people are split on this, but me? I’m all in. Bring on The Bone Temple.
For a longer, more detailed version, go to my Letterboxd page!
