How do you follow up a movie like producers Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 Years Later with something more sinister, foreboding, and evil? A movie that already had plenty of those aforementioned qualities. That was the question to be answered by Nia DaCosta and Garland’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. In multiple interviews and even at the Q&A following my screening of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this movie would be described as the ‘demented cousin to 28 Years Later’. Now that the short wait has come to an end, the unfortunate news is that it doesn’t necessarily deliver on all of those fronts. However, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple stands on its own as one of the most contained and humble entries in the series.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple takes place directly after the final scene of 28 Years Later. Spike (Alfie Williams) is acclimating to Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and his group of Jimmies. Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is returning to his daily routine after Spike and his mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), met with him at the end of the last movie. While going about his daily life, Dr. Kelson strikes up an unlikely friendship—whose identity I’m intentionally avoiding revealing.
Discussion
Given the direction that 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple takes, I understand the longer and more methodical draw that each scene has, but in doing so, the reduction of the infected seen on film is rather bizarre. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple covers a lot of plot. The experience is more balanced on the nerve endings rather than the rail grind of the senses that is 28 Years Later. And while these movies are two completely different products, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple hinges on its predecessor almost entirely—the lack of infected and the more relaxed journey feels like a disservice to what came before it.
The evil presence that this movie was marketed to be didn’t entirely hit. That result might be a failure on my own expectations, but the evilness of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is less Blood Meridian with zombies and more in line with an episode of The Walking Dead. This isn’t by any stretch a failure on the film’s part, but we aren’t given enough time with the Jimmies to see the level of depravity they can reach. We see very few instances where they exercise the evilness we were hoping to see. However, it all felt one-note; the sense of danger and anxiety was less than what audiences received in 28 Years Later. On the topic of Jack O’Connell, he was more foreboding and scary in last year’s (excellent) Sinners.
On the Bright Side
While I have some reservations about 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple as I place it against last year’s 28 Years Later, there were some really great moments. A few scenes in the film really bring the house down. A scene involving a barn really kept you on the edge of your seat. A scene involving a train was electric. And a scene that takes place at night near the end of the film rocked so hard you would have thought the movie turned into a concert with all of the hootin’ and hollerin’. Furthermore, Ralph Fiennes is incredible in this film by maintaining the tender and composed behavior even in the face of death.
The scale of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a great departure from its predecessors. What is being achieved is an oasis of the minds of the main characters of the film—Kelson, Jimmy, and Spike. None of the open points from 28 Years Later are reintroduced, but it isn’t entirely necessary here. Instead, the film we do get takes place in only a few locations, is less sprawling and grand than this series’s three prior films, and tries to capture a lot more by doing a lot less. These feats are achieved to moderate success, and the stones laid out for the third installment in the 28 Years Later movies provide enough intrigue as to what’s to come.
Final Thoughts on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
It is unfair to examine this movie without examining what came before and leaving skepticism about what’s to come. This review is being written in January of 2026, but the ultimate litmus of this film’s quality—given its connective tissue quality—mostly relies on how things wrap up. Only a few aspects remain in this film, and those elements are done well. With that said, at this point and time, we are waiting with bated breath as to how the 28 Years Later films wrap up. Boyle will return for the next film to direct, and Garland is either writing or has written the script for the finale, so time will reflect on how this film ultimately works.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the more humble and rounded sibling to the outlandish and far-swinging experience of 28 Years Later. In its own right, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple works and is a great complementary piece to 28 Years Later. While it doesn’t attain the heights of 28 Years Later, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is still a riot. Time will tell how this saga of films wraps up, but what we have today is respectable, and I cannot wait to see what comes next for both the 28 Years Later movies and DaCosta.
Nia DaCosta and Alex Garland’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is now playing in theaters!
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