28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

(dir. Nia DaCosta)

By: Adam Freed

There were more than a few questions raised surrounding the necessity of last summer’s 28 Years Later (2025), the decades-long follow up to Danny Boyle’s 2002 zombie masterclass 28 Days Later (2002).  Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and frequent screenwriting collaborator Alex Garland (Ex Machina) quickly turned worry into worship, as 28 Years Later was met with enviable critical and audience acclaim.  Garland and Boyle did the impossible by making a concept that is now decades old, feel fresh and relevant.  Taking no time to marinate in the fruits of his considerable labor, Boyle, less than seven months beyond the release of his own film, has passed the franchise baton to rapidly ascending director Nia DaCosta (Hedda), a decision that proves not only wise, but necessary.  What the Brooklyn, NY native DaCosta has done is infuse one of the most critically and emotionally satisfying zombie franchises in film history with her unique brand of empathetic humanity, and the result is the deeply horrifying, humorous and harrowing 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.  Just as Garland and Boyle breathed life into the undead in 2002, DaCosta is able to unearth a new angle and direction for the franchise that suddenly proves to be ripe with perspective and possibility.  

The Bone Temple acts as a direct sequel, in which only a few days have passed since young protagonist Spike, played admirably by Alfie Williams, has fallen under the protection of Sir Jimmy Crystal, a velvet track suit and gold chain wearing, flaxen locked tonal curveball of a character, first introduced within the controversial final scene of 28 Years Later.  Crystal and his vibrant color-adorned gang of followers, all of whom go by the name “Jimmy” in some iteration, prove to be a painful necessity for Spike’s survival in the zombie hellscape that is the United Kingdom.  Vibrating from the screen is the linguistically melodious and maniacal performance of Jack O’Connell, who provides DaCosta’s post-apocalyptic film with a magnetic antagonist, equally impactful to  Remmick, the Irish immigrant vampire he embodied in Ryan Coogler’s epic film Sinners (2025) a year ago. The question that Sir Jimmy forces audiences to face pertains to the waning morality of mankind in the face of a world that crumbles around it.  To this end, Crystal, and his band of “Jimmys” both stand out in vibrant contrast to the film’s drab English landscape, but meld perfectly within the permeating nihilistic sensibilities of The Bone Temple.

Be it ever so shocking, Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a performance film.  Stripped of some of the frenetic pace and chase that is more stylistically Danny Boyle’s, the much younger American filmmaker makes the appropriate choice to balance the central conflict of her film on the thematic buoyancy of hope.  This quest for hope and the search for a cure to the virus that laid waste to The United Kingdom decades ago, is found in character Dr. Ian Kelson, who audiences memorably met late in 28 Years Later.  Reprising his role as Kelson is acting royalty Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s List, Conclave), who is given supreme leeway to explore the considerable depths of his unique and inspirational character.  Kelson, an iodine-stained recluse, continues his empathetic quest to cure the zombie infected, rather than to simply eradicate his potential tormentors, as has been the case in most zombie films past.  This hopeful and compassionate portrayal leads to one of the most memorable relationships forged in The Bone Temple, one of a number of spoiler-ripe aspects of DaCosta’s film that make seeing it in theaters opening weekend an absolute necessity.  Zombie apocalypse films do not come much better or more complete than 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, an exciting fact that proves that when it comes to the decades old horror sub-genre, there is still plenty of meat left on the bone.

Target Score 9/10 - Against the somber backdrop of post-apocalyptic Britain, director Nia DaCosta has created one of the most complete and satisfying zombie films in memory.  Rich in humor and hysteria, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple forces audiences to consider the thematic weight of perspective in a shifting global landscape.  Offering polarized magnetic performances by Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes, The Bone Temple is not to be missed.