28 Years Later

⭐7/10

This is a zombie apocalypse movie that's a sequel to 28 Day Later which I watched earlier this year (I skipped the middle entry).  Like the title says, this one takes place 28 years after the outbreak, so it's a little bit of a unique take on the genre, though I'll admit it's nothing too crazy for people (like me) who have consumed a ton of zombie content. It's based in the Scottish Highlands where a small community continues to survive, but by now they are something closer to thriving. Still, not all their needs can be met in that colony, and so they have to travel outside of their walls where problems ensue. The primary goal of the characters is to meet up with a crazy doctor to help someone who is sick. Not a bad premise, especially because the doctor is super creepy and there is all sorts of mystery around him. 

It's a good zombie movie. By now, the zombies are secondary, and the story is more focused on death and the human condition. Again, this is nothing too crazy for the genre, and nothing you haven't seen if you've watched The Walking Dead or played The Last of Us. I still think it's important to mention that these are the OG zombie guys, so they have the right to tell derivative stories because all derivative zombie stories were originally inspired by this. This is your standard zombie movie that doesn't add a ton, but it's a compelling story told well. 

There were some unique stylistic choices, almost making this look like a comic book movie at times, but I think it worked well enough. But aside from the style, this movie is quite pleasant to look at. I mean it's the Scottish Highlands, just point your camera somewhere and it will look nice. Still, I remember some really nice camera work, characters looking over the sunset as a zombie stalks them from afar. 

I also appreciated a few performances, including the main child-actor, as well as Aaron Taylor-Johnson who has beautiful hair and an even more beautiful accent. Ralph Fiennes comes in and really works it in the second half, though I admit his whole arc to me just seemed weird. Indeed, I would say my main criticism of this movie is that it is all over the place tonally, oftentimes even having bizarre music choices for certain scenes. Maybe those are artistic choices I didn't get, but it didn't work for me. 

The final scene is kinda a silly throwaway, but I actually hated it and it gave me a lower opinion of the movie. Honestly made me lower the score a bit on its own. But yeah, overall this movie is fine, maybe even good, but not all of the choices totally worked for me.