Main spoilers for “28 Years Later” comply with.
There’s one key bit of knowledge it is advisable 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 yr. However when you did not know that, you may watch the ending of “28 Years Later” and be completely perplexed. I am nearly optimistic some members of my press screening viewers have 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 total, as a result of as I stated in my evaluate, “28 Years Later” is fairly rattling nice. In reality, the whole lot up till the ending works and works exceptionally properly. After which, director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland tack on an completely wacky ultimate 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 seems like we have by accident began watching a very totally different movie.
Briefly, it doesn’t work, and it is sure to confuse some folks.
The 28 Years Later prologue units up the movie’s bizarre ending, and the following film to come back
To be truthful, 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 bunch of children someplace within the Scottish Highlands watching “Teletubbies” on TV in a home.
Instantly, chaos erupts as contaminated folks burst in. The dad and mom of the youngsters are rapidly dispatched, as are the youngsters themselves. However one in all them, a lad named Jimmy, escapes. He runs to a close-by church the place he encounters his father, a priest. Reasonably 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 totally different characters. Our principal focus is Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old who lives on a secluded island along 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 those that aren’t contaminated) inside, and Spike and his household dwell in peace, secluded from the mainland and its contaminated ghouls.
Jimmy returns within the ultimate moments of 28 Years Later
All through the movie, we get a reminder about Jimmy through some graffiti scrawled on a wall and his title 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 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 infant seems uninfected). Ultimately, they discover the physician, who sadly tells them that Isla has most cancers and he or she’ll die quickly — and he or she does, peacefully.
After Isla’s dying, Spike drops the infant 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 really 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 title is Jimmy! You recognize, like the child originally 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 proud 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 will inform one full story with out organising a complete franchise. I am to see the place the story goes from right here (it appears clear that regardless that Jimmy and his gang helped Spike, he is in all probability dangerous information), however “28 Years Later” didn’t want to finish like this.
