The moviegoer is in for a treat each time when either Danny Boyle or Alex Garland is involved in a project. Whether it be Boyle with a timeless filmography of directing credits that include Sunshine, Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, and 127 Hours, or Garland’s vision with outside-the-box, ahead-of-his-time instant classics, such as Annihilation, Ex Machina, or Civil War, you can be confident you will be thinking of the film long after its view. 28 Days Later was the first time the two teamed up (Boyle as director, Garland as screenwriter). They struck a perfect accord of a tense, suspenseful, and foreboding film, painting a grim picture of what humanity could look like under the direst of circumstances.
The moviegoer is in for a treat each time when either Danny Boyle or Alex Garland is involved in a project. Whether it be Boyle with a timeless filmography of directing credits that include Sunshine, Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, and 127 Hours, or Garland’s vision with outside-the-box, ahead-of-his-time instant classics, such as Annihilation, Ex Machina, or Civil War, you can be confident you will be thinking of the film long after its view. 28 Days Later was the first time the two teamed up (Boyle as director, Garland as screenwriter). They struck a perfect accord of a tense, suspenseful, and foreboding film, painting a grim picture of what humanity could look like under the direst of circumstances.
I felt uninterested when I watched 28 Days Later for the first time. It was okay, but zombie movies were of little interest outside of the terrific 2004 film Dawn of the Dead. I expected zombies to be like those from George A. Romero films, like Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, and the original Dawn of the Dead. It took a movie like the undeniably exhilarating World War Z and the incredibly addictive The Walking Dead television series to pique my interest again in the undead/infected human horror sub-genre. With Boyle and Garland reuniting on a 2025 release of 28 Years Later, I rewatched 28 Days Later and its 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later. Each was a worthwhile rewatch, with the original being the one that resonated with me more.
In the film’s opening sequences, we see a group of animal activists break into a research lab where monkeys are being tested with a pathogenic disease developed for chemical warfare called the Rage Virus. Despite pleas from the research doctors not to release one of the test animals, an activist unlocks a container and is bitten by a monkey, resulting in the virus spreading to humans.
Our protagonist, Jim (Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place Part II), awakens in an abandoned hospital after being in a coma for reasons unrelated to the infection. We see him walk outside to a barren London landscape. Where are the humans? Where are the undead? Taking all the other factors out of the equation and putting aside that if the undead killed all humans, why don’t we see the undead? Has London become so decimated that the undead have moved to other parts of the world? Has the rest of the world become infected, too? Why didn’t the undead feast on Jim? If they didn’t breach the hospital, why did all those in the hospital leave? There are dozens of plot holes worth examining. However, I could put all of those aside and take the movie for what it was.
As Jim begins to roam, he finds a church with two moving bodies. He finds a stack of bodies in a church, awakening one of them, who breaks down a door and tears after him, after Jim screams out, “Hello,” in an attempt to find others. It is here that we learn the infected aren’t your Romero zombies. They are not even dead. They are infected with the Rage Virus, which allows them to move at speeds we aren’t accustomed to seeing in such films. World War Z was one of the first (and best) films to show that an infected can move at speeds faster than a typical human, rather than the slow, stiff movements that had conditioned us through previous movies and television series. This scene sets the tone for our film.
Much like other post-apocalyptic-type films, however, we learn that enemies appear in a variety of ways. Like many, 28 Days Later explores themes of humanity turning against itself. Jim meets other humans, both good and evil, along the way, including Selena (Naomie Harris – Moonlight, Southpaw) and Mark (Noah Huntley – Snow White and the Huntsman, Miss You Already), who inform him (and us) that any contact with an infected’s blood will make you infected, too.
While the film’s story isn’t all that unique and follows, at times, all too familiar plot devices, including meeting rootable protagonists and vile antagonists while fending off the infected (and uninfected) in situations that become increasingly harrowing, Boyle’s direction points this film down a dismal path, where we are led down a path of dread, irregardless of what happens to our lead characters. Boyle and Garland aim at humanity’s fight-or-flight response when pressed against the extremes of danger. It’s a striking tale of right versus wrong or good versus evil, set against a world on the brink of extinction.
28 Days Later is a bleak film that could have painted an even grimmer picture of humanity had the last couple of scenes gone in a different direction. Still, it laid the foundation for its 28 Weeks Later, nearly an equally impressive film. With 28 Years Later set for an August 2025 release, while reuniting Boyle and Garland as director and screenwriter (the pair served only as executive producers of 28 Weeks Later), there is the possibility that this franchise, while too underseen, could rival some of the best trilogies of all time.
Plot 8/10
Character Development 8/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 9/10
Directing 9.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 10/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
91%
A
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- 28 Weeks Later
- Dawn of the Dead
- World War Z
- I Am Legend
- The Road