Summary
A confident, blood-soaked continuation, Nia DaCosta put a distinctive, reflective stamp on the franchise.
Nia DaCosta’s entry in the 28 Days Later series might immediately follow the events of 28 Years Later, but often it feels content to sit inside its own little bubble. With Alex Garland’s sprawling narrative tying everything together, DaCosta takes Danny Boyle’s visual language as a blueprint to tell something curiously more reflective and measured. That’s an impressive feat given the amount of bloodletting on display.
Shot back to back, DaCosta and Garland pick up where the last film left off. Spike (Alfie Williams), now on his own after an ill-fated quest to save his mother, is pressed into Sir Jimmy Crystal’s (Jack O’Connell) gang. With their twin influences of Satan and Jimmy Savile, they reign terror across the ravaged land. Meanwhile, Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), surrounded by the titular bone temple, continues his research into the infected, making remarkable progress with a gargantuan alpha he names Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry).
There are moments during the Jimmys’ lengthy torture scenes that border on gratuitous, but it soon becomes clear that DaCosta and Garland are setting up a dichotomy: the decay of civilisation on one hand, and the possibility of redemption on the other. “I do remember there was a sense of certainty,” Kelson recalls of the pre-infection Earth. “The world had an order to it.” His scenes are peppered with quiet moments: sitting beside a sedated Samson by the river, or singing Duran Duran while dragging a zombie corpse down the road. Yes, 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE can be disarmingly funny.
The two threads coalesce in a monumental moment — Fiennes dancing in a fire circle to Iron Maiden turned up to eleven — as DaCosta firmly puts her stamp on the 28 Days Later legacy. She wisely avoids trying to reinvent the genre, instead leaning hard into it. You can read the film as a take on cult leadership and draw real-world analogies. In an interview with IndieWire, Boyle spoke about the first film being about the nature of family, and this one being about the nature of evil. O’Connell’s Jimmy isn’t exactly evil; we’re reminded of his past trauma and what shaped his belief system. Yet it’s the path he’s chosen, and one the rest of the survivors are only inches away from following.
Like its predecessor, 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE also points clearly toward the next instalment. You’ve no doubt read the rumours and reveals, but suffice it to say it promises a full-circle moment for the franchise. For now, DaCosta has kicked off our 2026 viewing in style, setting a high bar for the rest of the year.
2026 | UK/USA | DIRECTOR: Nia DaCosta | WRITERS: Alex Garland | CAST: Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman, Chi Lewis-Parry | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14 January 2026 (UK), 15 January 2026 (Australia), 16 January 2026 (US).