28 Years Later Is a 'Poetic Apocalyptic Downer'

A lot has changed since 2002's 28 Days Later, which introduced audiences to the so-called rage virus, and 2007's 28 Weeks Later, which raised hopes of eradicating the virus only to dash them. Foremost, audiences now know what it's like to live through an actual pandemic. And in 28 Years Later, with a 95% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, we can understand a 12-year-old boy's desire to venture through "infected" territory to seek out a deranged doctor who might be able to help his ailing mom. Four takes on the new sequel, conceived as the start of a new trilogy, from director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland:

• It's a "critic's pick" from Variety's Peter Debruge, who argues few horror films have "stared death directly in the bloodshot eyes—quite so effectively." There are fresh scares as the "infected" morph, but this sequel "restores their humanity," particularly as 12-year-old Spike (newcomer Alfie Williams) arrives at a temple of bones erected by the mysterious doctor (Ralph Fiennes).
• "This is an unusually soulful coming-of-age movie considering the number of spinal cords that get ripped right of bodies," writes Jake Coyle at the AP. Largely shot on iPhones, the film is "an often bumpy ride." But "there's an admirable resistance to being anything like a cardboard cutout summer movie" and there are "some tender reflections on mortality and misguided exceptionalism."

• "Parts of it are wondrously beautiful; some sections are so mawkishly morbid they might make you groan. But at least you won't be bored," writes Stephanie Zacharek at Time. "A poetic apocalyptic downer if ever there were one," the film "contains a little bit of everything that made the first film great" but "somehow, adds up to less," partly due to a "jarring and dumb" ending—though it's "really just a beginning."
• The cliffhanger ending "will be baffling to some and offensive to others," but "it's appropriately upsetting and intriguing" considering a follow-up film, The Bone Temple, is due for release in January, Esther Zuckerman writes at Bloomberg. Taken as a whole, 28 Years Later is "one of the strangest, most exhilarating blockbusters in recent memory"—"a truly bizarre piece of art that's somehow both grotesque and extremely moving," and serves "a mediation on the ways in which people lose their empathy in the face of unimaginable trauma."