by Josh Sewell
Last June’s 28 Years Later was a divisive flick, but I thought it was excellent. In fact, it just missed my Top 10 (it did make my honorable mentions, though). Granted, the sequel to 2002’s 28 Days Later didn’t have a ton of zombie action since returning collaborators Danny Boyle (who directed) and Alex Garland (the screenwriter) focused more on the hero’s journey of a young boy in the apocalypse. There was still a considerable amount of blood and guts, but they prioritized character and emotion over gore and scares.
It also ended on a jarring cliffhanger featuring an oddball group of acrobatic murderers who dressed in blonde wigs, gold chains and other bizarre accoutrements. That’s the element that took a lot of viewers out of the movie, but it added a whole new degree of horror to those familiar with the decades-long Jimmy Savile scandal that rocked Britain. (For more info, check out his repulsive Wikipedia entry.)
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the highly anticipated follow-up, expands upon the world Boyle and Garland created, but does so from fascinating new perspectives. For this installment, director Nia DaCosta focuses on Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who is stunned to discover he may have found a way to calm the rage virus. At the same time, young Spike (Alfie Williams) has been taken in by Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and his monstrous gang, which quickly becomes a nightmare he can’t escape.
Believe it or not, The Bone Temple might be even better – and weirder – than its wonderfully strange predecessor. At the very least, those who complained it didn’t have enough violence will get plenty of it this time around. Boyle hands off directing duties to the underrated DaCosta (The Marvels and her Candyman legacyquel didn’t get the credit they deserved), but Garland returns to flesh out their captivating postapocalyptic world. The result is a bleak, emotional and surprisingly funny middle chapter of a planned trilogy.
At first, it’s a bit disappointing that Spike takes a back seat in this installment considering he was such an engaging and unexpected protagonist in the last movie. However, since we get to spend more time with Fiennes as the eccentric-but-kindhearted Dr. Kelson, I’d consider that a fair trade. I would’ve never expected the legendary actor to have one of the best roles of his career in a decades-later zombie franchise sequel, but he instills Kelson with such humanity in the face of nihilism that he’s immediately appealing.
Fiennes is so proficient at playing loathsome cinematic villains like Voldemort from the Harry Potter series and real-life monster Amon Göth from Schindler’s List (as well as President Snow in the next Hunger Games prequel later this year) that it’s easy to forget that he’s also played admirable characters in films like Conclave, The Grand Budapest Hotel and the recent Bond flicks. In a stunning turn of events, his work as Kelson reaches some of those same heights.
I was transfixed any time he was on screen, primarily because most of his scenes are with Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry, also terrific), the behemoth zombie from the last film. Kelson has learned how to keep him somewhat docile with a morphine-heavy drug cocktail, and the good doctor can’t help but perform experiments to see how the virus reacts to the improvised regimen.
As fascinating as their scenes together are, Fiennes’ best work comes in the jaw-dropping final act, which caused the audience in my press screening to cheer and applaud. That sequence alone makes The Bone Temple worth seeing on the big screen.
The film’s other plot isn’t quite as compelling, but it’s elevated by great work from Williams, O’Connell (who manages to be even more frightening here than he was as an Irish vampire in Sinners) and Erin Kellyman, playing a somewhat sympathetic member of Jimmy’s gang. This half of the flick is also where gorehounds will get their red meat. DaCosta goes to graphic lengths to show the depravity of Jimmy Crystal and his followers, particularly a brutal torture session set in a family’s barn. It got so bad that I had to stare at the floor more than a couple of times.
Although the resolution of the central conflict ends up feeling a little anticlimactic, DaCosta and Garland set up the trilogy’s final installment with one heck of a cliffhanger. To be fair, I guessed what was coming, but I was certainly happy to be right. I can’t wait to revisit this weird, scary world with the characters still left in play.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, graphic nudity, language throughout and brief drug use. Opens in theaters on January 16.
Grade: A-
It also ended on a jarring cliffhanger featuring an oddball group of acrobatic murderers who dressed in blonde wigs, gold chains and other bizarre accoutrements. That’s the element that took a lot of viewers out of the movie, but it added a whole new degree of horror to those familiar with the decades-long Jimmy Savile scandal that rocked Britain. (For more info, check out his repulsive Wikipedia entry.)
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the highly anticipated follow-up, expands upon the world Boyle and Garland created, but does so from fascinating new perspectives. For this installment, director Nia DaCosta focuses on Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who is stunned to discover he may have found a way to calm the rage virus. At the same time, young Spike (Alfie Williams) has been taken in by Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and his monstrous gang, which quickly becomes a nightmare he can’t escape.
Believe it or not, The Bone Temple might be even better – and weirder – than its wonderfully strange predecessor. At the very least, those who complained it didn’t have enough violence will get plenty of it this time around. Boyle hands off directing duties to the underrated DaCosta (The Marvels and her Candyman legacyquel didn’t get the credit they deserved), but Garland returns to flesh out their captivating postapocalyptic world. The result is a bleak, emotional and surprisingly funny middle chapter of a planned trilogy.
At first, it’s a bit disappointing that Spike takes a back seat in this installment considering he was such an engaging and unexpected protagonist in the last movie. However, since we get to spend more time with Fiennes as the eccentric-but-kindhearted Dr. Kelson, I’d consider that a fair trade. I would’ve never expected the legendary actor to have one of the best roles of his career in a decades-later zombie franchise sequel, but he instills Kelson with such humanity in the face of nihilism that he’s immediately appealing.
Fiennes is so proficient at playing loathsome cinematic villains like Voldemort from the Harry Potter series and real-life monster Amon Göth from Schindler’s List (as well as President Snow in the next Hunger Games prequel later this year) that it’s easy to forget that he’s also played admirable characters in films like Conclave, The Grand Budapest Hotel and the recent Bond flicks. In a stunning turn of events, his work as Kelson reaches some of those same heights.
I was transfixed any time he was on screen, primarily because most of his scenes are with Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry, also terrific), the behemoth zombie from the last film. Kelson has learned how to keep him somewhat docile with a morphine-heavy drug cocktail, and the good doctor can’t help but perform experiments to see how the virus reacts to the improvised regimen.
As fascinating as their scenes together are, Fiennes’ best work comes in the jaw-dropping final act, which caused the audience in my press screening to cheer and applaud. That sequence alone makes The Bone Temple worth seeing on the big screen.
The film’s other plot isn’t quite as compelling, but it’s elevated by great work from Williams, O’Connell (who manages to be even more frightening here than he was as an Irish vampire in Sinners) and Erin Kellyman, playing a somewhat sympathetic member of Jimmy’s gang. This half of the flick is also where gorehounds will get their red meat. DaCosta goes to graphic lengths to show the depravity of Jimmy Crystal and his followers, particularly a brutal torture session set in a family’s barn. It got so bad that I had to stare at the floor more than a couple of times.
Although the resolution of the central conflict ends up feeling a little anticlimactic, DaCosta and Garland set up the trilogy’s final installment with one heck of a cliffhanger. To be fair, I guessed what was coming, but I was certainly happy to be right. I can’t wait to revisit this weird, scary world with the characters still left in play.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, graphic nudity, language throughout and brief drug use. Opens in theaters on January 16.
Grade: A-
Reach out to Josh Sewell at joshsewell81@gmail.com or on BlueSky @joshsewell.bsky.social
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