A Massive Improvement Over the Last Film?

PLOT: Young Spike (Alfie Williams), after having survived the events of the first film, is forced to join a Satan-worshipping cult called “The Jimmys,” which is led by the charismatic but evil Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who considers himself the Antichrist. Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) forges a bond with one of the infected, Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), and is able to learn crucial information about what the infection does to the human mind and how it may be treated.

REVIEW: 28 Years Later was one of the more disappointing films I saw last year. While it wasn’t actually a bad film, it just felt like an anti-climax and a letdown, considering that we all eagerly awaited director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland’s return to the genre. While excellent in chunks, on the whole the movie felt surprisingly overbaked, and while it did OK at the box office, it didn’t exactly leave anyone clamouring for the release of the already shot sequel, The Bone Temple, much less the planned third film.

Yet, miraculously, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a much better film, with director Nia DaCosta bringing a different, perhaps more classical aesthetic to the franchise, emphasizing horror over the last film’s focus on what living in the aftermath of the decades-long infection would be like. It’s almost as if all the pretentious stuff was gotten out of the way in the last film, with this one focusing instead on a deeply unsettling series of encounters in the wasteland that is now Britain — a place where the infected are less dangerous than the humans left behind.

Once again, Alfie Williams’ Spike is our hero, with him captured by The Jimmys and — after he lucks into killing one of them in a knife fight — is forced to join their gang. Their leader, Jack O’Connell’s Jimmy Crystal, roams the wasteland looking for survivors he can skin alive as an offering to “Old Nick” (aka Satan), who he believes is his father. It’s actually strikingly similar to his recent turn in Sinners, with him once again a charismatic, but unrepentantly evil force battling for the souls of everyone he encounters. Unnervingly, he’s been styled to look like the late Jimmy Savile, a former children’s TV host from Britain (and friend of the royal family) who, after his death, was revealed to have molested somewhere in the neighbourhood of 300 children.

The Bone Temple is significantly gorier than the last film, with Jimmy leading his evil gang in viciously slaughtering everyone they come across, his preferred method being to skin people alive. Poor Spike is an unwilling participant, but lucks out when they spy Ralph Fiennes’ Kelson from afar and believe he himself may actually be the devil.

Fiennes gets to be the lead this time, with the movie focusing on his efforts to help the infected, using the towering Alpha he calls Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) as his willing guinea pig after he discovers that shots of morphine actually calm his violent nature, allowing him to piece together crucial information about the infection. If the Jimmy chunk of the movie is unrelentingly violent, this Kelson portion is unexpectedly hopeful, and even funny, with it revealed that Kelson has quite a record collection and is fond of Duran Duran and Iron Maiden.

It all culminates in an incredible showdown with The Jimmys that doesn’t play out the way you expect, but is so brilliantly done that when it was over, the audience I saw it with cheered and applauded. It sports a needle drop that any metal fan will go crazy for and, despite being the second film in the trilogy, actually leaves you feeling satisfied, having given you a full experience.

A lot of credit is due to Nia DaCosta, who seems to have toned down some of the more fanciful areas Boyle got caught up in last time. The Jimmys don’t do parkour like they did at the end of the previous movie, and the soundtrack is more conventional, with Hildur Guðnadóttir taking over for the hip-hop group Young Fathers, who scored the last one. The first movie in the series is also given some call-outs I won’t ruin here, but suffice it to say the ending makes one pretty excited for the third film — although part of me also thinks maybe DaCosta would be better off directing it than Boyle, who seems less interested in playing in the genre space these days.

I really was shocked by how much I enjoyed 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which I found compelling from start to finish. The cast is great, with O’Connell and Fiennes in top form, while Mayor of Kingstown’s Emma Laird also pops up in a great part as one of the more evil members of the gang (whereas Willow star Erin Kellyman is one of the more humane members — and similarly effective). Heck, even if you REALLY didn’t like the last one, give this one a shot. It’s such a huge improvement you’ll barely believe it.

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