Dir: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Alfie Williams, Jack O’Connell, Ralph Fiennes, Chi Lewis-Parry
The film is set three decades after the outbreak in the first movie and follows the story of a family unit, Jamie, Isla, and Spike, who are shielded from the worst of it by the tides of their island community. However, when Spike takes his ailing mother to the mainland to visit the mysterious Dr Kelson, her death leaves him at the mercy of the Infected. The final scene sees him rescued by the goons of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, a rotten-toothed, platinum-blond, jewellery-draped cult leader.
In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the Jimmies force Spike into service, while Jamie hunts frantically for his son. Meanwhile, Dr Kelson is getting worryingly familiar with the Alpha known as Samson, and the ‘cure’ he claims to have created comes with terrible side-effects.
The film boasts an impressive number of survivors from the last film, including Alfie Williams, who brings greater depth to the scarred Spike, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who captures the complexity of Jamie. Ralph Fiennes plays the soft-spoken GP, Dr Kelson, who was a kind and reassuring presence in the earlier movie but is now striding forward into the second film in an enormous way.
The film is rated ‘18’ and will leave viewers with bite marks, as Nia DaCosta doesn’t shy away from the brutality, with some of the most cringe-inducing violence of the series taking place in this film.
