Name: 28 Years Later (2025)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Released: 2025-06-20
Rating: 7.0
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer, jack o'connell

A post-apocalyptic horror film produced and directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Alex Garland. It is the third installment in the 28 Days Later film series, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Comer in lead roles.

28 Years Later (2025)

Times of India

India Today

The Indian Express

Comparisons with ‘28 Days Later’ and ‘28 Weeks Later’ are inevitable, and to get straight to the point—'28 Years Later’ is a technically polished and often striking film, but it lacks the relentless energy and emotional depth of its predecessors. Danny Boyle returns to the director’s chair with a fresh take, blending folk horror with the remnants of a zombie apocalypse, but the story struggles to hold together as it progresses. The premise—an island boy seeking treatment for his sick mother—works well in the beginning, offering a compelling emotional hook. However, the film gradually shifts away from the menace of the Rage virus and veers into melodrama, ultimately dulling its impact.
The story unfolds in the secluded beauty of the Scottish Highlands, where Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife Isla (Jodie Comer), and their son Spike (Alfie Williams) live in relative peace on an isolated island community, untouched by the virus. Isla is gravely ill, and Jamie decides to take Spike to the mainland—a journey that feels like a rite of passage to manhood. Their trip begins with suspenseful momentum: lush green jungles teeming with the infected, the silent dread, and a deadly run-in with Alphas. Boyle excels in these sequences, building tension through atmosphere rather than cheap thrills. But once the duo returns to the island and Spike later decides to go back with his mother to seek a “doctor” rumoured to cure the sick, the film begins to lose steam.
The second half introduces several subplots and new characters, including the eccentric Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who lives in isolation and conducts strange rituals that feel straight out of ‘Apocalypse Now.’ While visually arresting, these moments don’t connect meaningfully to the central narrative. In contrast to the tightly wound tension of the earlier films, the military presence here feels weak and underwritten. In previous entries, soldiers were key drivers of both horror and plot progression; here, their token presence creates a vacuum the script struggles to fill. The shift from survival horror to personal drama may be intentional, but it doesn’t fully pay off.
Performance-wise, the film finds solid footing. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Jamie with a mix of control and buried desperation—a man trying to prepare his son for a world he doesn’t fully understand. His affection for Spike is believable, though his emotional distance from Isla and involvement with another islander feels glossed over. Jodie Comer, however, brings raw vulnerability to Isla, especially in a striking sequence involving the delivery of a baby by an infected mother. But it's Alfie Williams as Spike who emerges as the film’s true heart. His performance is quietly powerful, capturing the innocence, curiosity, and courage of a boy on the cusp of transformation.
There’s no denying that Boyle still knows how to craft a compelling visual experience. The film’s early scenes are steeped in dread and quiet beauty, the sense of isolation almost poetic. But strong visuals can only carry a film so far. ‘28 Years Later’ starts strong, builds intrigue, and promises something deeper—but ultimately can’t sustain its momentum. Alex Garland’s screenplay has flashes of brilliance, especially in how it explores generational trauma and protection, but the horror elements are inconsistent and the narrative becomes scattered. This isn't a bad film by any means, but it doesn’t live up to the promise of its lineage. What could’ve been a thrilling evolution ends up feeling more like an echo.

When '28 Days Later' came out in 2002, it shocked everyone about how someone could paint such a brutal canvas of what would happen if zombies took over the world. At that time, the zombie-horror genre was new, and Danny Boyle’s film immediately catapulted in a direction that ushered in more filmmakers to explore this landscape.

A follow-up to the massive success of '28 Days Later' was the 2007 film '28 Weeks Later'. A tad bit milder and not so effective as the prequel, the film felt like it was an exercise to draw ticket sales more than appeal to its loyal audience. But the wait for the third chapter is worthwhile as director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland bring us the tightest possible film in the franchise.

This time around, the story revolves around a family, where Jamie (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife Isla (played by Jodie Comer), and their son Spike (played by Alife Williams) live on a remote island away from the virus that exterminated the population. As simple as it might sound, things change and take turns for the worse when Jamie realises that he needs to go to the mainland to find a cure for his ailing wife.
In a post-Covid world, a setting of this nature where a father and a husband try to find a cure for his ailing wife might feel eerily similar. A lot has changed in the world since the time of '28 Days Later' and the makers are aware of this. The second half especially is where we get to watch Boyle’s brilliance.

He doesn’t approach horror as a straight linear genre but adds several subplots and elements to make it more difficult for the viewer to predict what’s happening next. Visually it’s on par with the first film. Despite the availability of CGI and VFX, Boyle creates more tension and fear in the scenes stripped of the technical wizardry.

The performances are excellent, especially Johnson and Comer, who are both so good in the film. Ralph Fiennes pops up in the middle of the film, giving an iconic performance that picks pace and infuses some energy in the plot. Anthony Dod Mantle, the visionary behind the film’s striking close-ups, reunites with Danny Boyle after their first collaboration. Together, they are in top form, delivering some truly spectacular and visually arresting moments.

The only big grouse with the film is that it gets too caught up in its own premise at multiple junctures. Rather than keeping the ball rolling, it stops, pauses and tries to intellectualise certain sequences to no avail. While the zombie genre has been explored in both cinema and television tirelessly over the years, '28 Years Later' still feels fresh and exciting.

If you enjoyed '28 Days Later' and wondered why we didn’t get something as spectacular as the first film, then your wait is over. '28 Years Later' is a good time at the cinemas, and you won’t regret it

There are three distinct parts of 28 Years Later that could well be three different films. They shift tonally, the past hardly informing the present. It may not be storytelling at its best, but you may not care, so stunning is 28 Years Later in how it looks and sounds.

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, who won an Oscar for another Danny Boyle film, Slumdog Millionaire, pulls you into this apocalyptic world. Death is beautiful here, but so is pulsating life, even of some of the zombies, or “the infected” as Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland call them. And, above all, is nature, which has risen pristine in this new, quiet world.
Then there is the inspired use of Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 poem Boots, about wars and soldiers marching zombie-like into it. The spoken-word recording of it by actor Taylor Holmes in 1915 is used for its psychological effect in US military training. Once you have heard it in 28 Years Later, you will know exactly why.
A gate (big, sure) and a watchtower (manned, sure) are the only things preventing the infected from making the trip in reverse.
On the island, the uninfected lead a presumably idyllic, pastoral, pre-modern life – farming, raising animals, praying and sharing meagre resources. One link, though, exists to their previous lives: a Queen Elizabeth portrait.

It’s here that we are introduced to Spike (Williams), a 12-year-old, who is being taken for his first trip to the mainland by father Jamie (Taylor-Johnson). His mother Isla (Comer) objects, but she is too laid down by a mystery illness to put up much of a resistance. Plus, Spike is too pumped as the entire island cheers him on.
A stunning scene of an Alpha standing in wait beside a solitary tree on the horizon, for the father and son who are hiding in a house that soon crumbles, will haunt you. As well as another when the same Alpha chases them down the causeway as they make their mad scramble for safety. The sky is bathed in stars, and beautiful colours, the sea waves are rippling but deceptively calm, and here are three people running across the waters.

What follows doesn’t really make much sense logically. Spike’s motivation in going across almost immediately, dragging Isla along, in search of an illusory Dr Kelson (Fiennes) to cure her, is contrived at best. It’s a trip down Heart of Darkness territory, at the end of which may lie a Kurtz-like figure.

28 Years Later - Hindi Trailer | Releasing Exclusively In Cinemas June 20

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Ralph Fiennes (born Ralph Nathaniel Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes) is an English actor. A BAFTA Award winner and Academy Award nominee, Fiennes’ notable works include Schindler’s List (1993), Quiz Show (1994), The English Patient (1996), The Constant Gardener (2005), The Reader (20080 and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

28 Years Later (2025)(2025)