Nia Dacosta succeeds, and then some

Trilogies are tough, but middle entries are even tougher. Like those perpetually overlooked middle children, the second entry in a trilogy faces just as much pressure to succeed, but with half the grace afforded to revered eldest children or coddled youngest. (And I say this as the overachieving oldest of three brothers.) But when a middle entry (child or film) succeeds, the results are remarkable. Think The Empire Strikes Back or The Dark Knight, movies that broke the mold of the trailblazing first and overshadowed whatever followed. (The list of high-achieving middle children includes Michael Jordan, Warren Buffett, and Madonna.) In spite of the heavy odds stacked against it, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is one of those perfect middle entry movies: It elevates what came before and throws down the gauntlet for whatever might follow.

There was a moment where I worried Bone Temple director Nia DaCosta was being set up to fail. Danny Boyle returned to the franchise he created in 2002 with 28 Days Later to relaunch it with 2025’s 28 Years Later. Then, he handed over the keys to DaCosta to direct a sequel before the first film was even released. Without the benefit (or hindrance) of audience reactions, the director of The Marvels and the 2021 Candyman had to follow one of our greatest modern filmmakers, while also setting up a third movie that wasn’t yet confirmed.

DaCosta succeeds, and then some. While The Bone Temple isn’t as visually experimental or emotionally resonant as 28 Years Later, it’s a capable follow-up that carefully widens the world of this post-apocalyptic franchise, finding both charming comedy and grotesque horror in its alternate version of England nearly three decades after a zombie virus sweeps across the island.

Image: Sony

28 Years Later centers on young Spike (Alfie Williams) and his unhappy parents (Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson), while introducing the morbid but lovely Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and the violent Satanist Jimmy (Jack O’Connell). The Bone Temple focuses on those latter two characters, setting them off on disparate and tonally opposing adventures before smashing them together in spectacular fashion. (Spike is mostly just along for the ride, losing most of the agency he possessed in the previous film.)

The story begins shortly after Boyle left off. Spike has been welcomed into Jimmy’s merry band of murderers, who all call themselves Jimmy and wear matching blonde wigs. After a violent initiation ceremony, the Jimmys descend upon a family of survivors. Promising “charity,” the Jimmys torture the family at length, with a brutality that may have even the most depraved horror fans covering their eyes. DaCosta doesn’t spare us from the gore, pointing the camera directly at every bloody act to reinforce the uncaring reality of this world.

O’Connell plays his part to perfection, earnestly selling the conceit that his character believes Satan sent both the rage virus and Jimmy himself to rid the world of human immorality. In a franchise defined by violent, sprinting zombies, O’Connell manages to be the scariest figure onscreen, though his followers often feel like interchangeable background actors just waiting to get killed off.

Fiennes’ story plays out on a completely different wavelength. Kelson hasn’t changed much since we left him in 28 Years Later. He’s still residing in his ever-growing monument to the dead, built from their bones, but after saying goodbye to Spike, he finds a new friend in Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), the rage-infected “Alpha” who terrorized Spike and Kelson in the previous film. Samson becomes an unlikely friend, leading to some bizarrely touching, eerily beautiful moments. DaCosta finds both comedy and emotion in the odd-couple pairing, without using horror-movie trickery to suggest a jump-scare is right around the corner. Instead, Kelson’s story serves as a relaxing break from the horrors of the Jimmys, emphasizing the core concept at the heart of any good zombie movie: The real villain is the way humanity turns on itself as society crumbles.

Eventually, it becomes clear Kelson and Jimmy aren’t on parallel tracks, they’re on a collision course. The movie reaches its unpredictable climax as these two characters cross paths in a showdown DaCosta and screenwriter Alex Garland (director of Civil War, Annihilation, etc.) frame around good vs. evil, or perhaps science vs. religion. (One gets the sense Garland doesn’t see much difference between those two match-ups.) Their initial interaction is surprisingly civil, and O’Connell more than holds his own against Fiennes through a bout of verbal jousting. Their second interaction is epic and overwhelming in scale, an incredible achievement by DaCosta and the film’s entire crew that would be impossible to describe without spoiling the experience. Suffice to say, when the movie reached its climax, my entire theater broke out in unprompted applause, even though there were still 20 minutes left to go.

While The Bone Temple is undeniably an entertaining, beautiful movie, some fans of 28 Years Later may be disappointed by the lack of broader worldbuilding in this sequel. That film featured a marooned Swedish soldier played by Edvin Ryding, who revealed how the world beyond England largely moved on after beating back the infection and quarantining the entire country. If you’re hoping for more info on what the rest of humanity has been up to in the three decades since the virus was first unleashed, you won’t find it here, although a confirmed third movie set to close out the 28 Years Later trilogy still has a chance to offer up those answers (among others). Much like a doted-on youngest child, the saga’s final entry may get pampered with the biggest reveals and plot points. But as far as middle entries go, The Bone Temple is one of the best.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple releases in theaters on Jan. 16.