28 Years Later (2025)
28 Years Later (2025)
Boyle and Garland have, in their dotage, outdone themselves. The first film was good, the second almost entirely forgettable, but this third act, wow, fucking fantastic. “28 Swinging Cocks”, “28 Inch Cock” or "28 Dicks Later", any could have been apt titles, but that’s too easy. This is the movie in which the anatomy is riotous, the intellect unashamed, the heart unexpectedly exposed.
I have an unpopular take. I liked the first, loved the second, and thought this was a trainwreck. The marketing was misleading. The movie was tonally all over the place. Jodie Comer was used as a prop. I thought the new zombie archetypes were cringey, e.g. "We call these ones the Alphas." (Are they developing a video game?) The editing of the action scenes was sloppy - an Alpha is sprinting at you, but you have time to stop and talk about who's going to shoot the arrow? I don't want semi-sentient zombies with nicknames, I don't want anyone holding hands with mommy zombies.
I may give it another watch at some point, but on first watch I was confused and disappointed.
I agree with you on all points. It felt like they had turned what was actually a serious, scary franchise into a goofy caricature of what it was before. Also the final ending scenes made my eyes roll.
Everything after the first act felt largely pointless. It started off well and then just shifted into a different movie. The final scene is stupid.
Both the new movies are just cash grabs. Garland should be writing original sci fi's. Not a zombie trilogy.
The first one is my all-time favourite, the second one is alright/watchable and I absolutely detested 28 years later. The first act seemed interesting enough and I liked the "Junji Ito" slug zombies, but it was all downhill from there and I just felt weird watching it. What a mess.
Yep. They didn't try very hard in some respects and were hoping to be carried by shock factor, which, lots of dick and a pregnant zombie giving birth, wow so edgy.
Have my upvote as I do enjoy reading other people’s perspective.
Look I kinda agree with most of what's said here, the tonal whiplash of the final act left me a bit lost for words. The thing I find so weird about the reviews I have read is the obsession with penises. Have these people not seen one before, is it that upsetting to them. There are also nude infected women, you can see some "zombie" titties but this seems completely unremarkable.
Am I just too old and rational to express adequate shock about seeing naked men in a group of naked people for whom nudity isn't an absolutely unreasonable state of being?
Or was it just the size of one particular member that made the experience noteworthy for them?
Do you live in North America?
In general, I think full male nudity is still jarring to US audiences because historically speaking, it's not super common in movies and tv shows outside of pornographic settings. Though it does seem like it's becoming a lot more common in recent history.
Also, as is the case with that one particular penis you're asking about, a lot of times when full frontal male nudity is shown in a movie or tv show, it's done for "shock value".
Full frontal male nudity is something that most viewers will notice no matter what because at the end of the day it's genitals and we're mostly all just wired that way. However, aside from that one penis, the rest of the male nudity in the movie was not prominently featured and was otherwise pretty unremarkable. Definitely wouldn't have garnered much of any discussion, relative to some of the other shocking stuff in the movie.
No, I'm from Australia, which I always considered to be a pretty conservative country with regards to nudity. I think we have been more inconsistent with that than the USA though.
When Watchmen came out in theaters I recommend it to someone at work. I know people shit on it for changing the ending but I think it was good for the general public. I liked that the Watchmen series on HBO kept the psychic squid attack, but that's not the point of this comment. Sorry I got sidetracked.
The point is after he came back from seeing it he complained (jokingly) about I should have warned him about the giant blue penis. He would go the next few weeks saying 'blue penis' to me randomly. I think it left a mark on him. I didn't really think much of it but I read the comic before. Idk why people are so scared of penises. I'm sure being in the US and the view of violence good but sex bad is a big part.
Yeah that movie was something. Having not read the comics first I quite enjoyed the vibe of it. I think the penis in question glowing in Watchmen made it fairly hard to disregard. I really liked the HBO series and as much as I hated it at the time I respect that they had a single season show and they just did a single season.
Yeah the puritanical thing is weird right. I took my kids to a beach here in Australia and they literally staked out a spot 5 metres from a lovely Canadian backpacker, who just so happened to be topless. We had a chat for a bit and I gave her some tips about local sightseeing as well as directions to the nearest unofficial nude beach. Both my boys (6 & 8 at the time) didn't glance at her once, kids just aren't super concerned about boobs in my experience. On the other hand you better believe I heard ALL about the first fight they ever saw in person.
My kids are now teenagers and have gotten a bit more concerned with their own privacy, but still don't seem to be exhibiting any hang ups about casual or contextual nudity.
The zombie “titties” and naked women are there too, absolutely, but there’s something uniquely ludicrous about the film’s focus on swinging, sprinting masculinity, a kind of visual punchline to apocalypse. And we don't see this in movies very often. I actually thought the Alpha was Jason Mamoa for some reason, had to pause to Google it as I was pretty sure he wasn't in this movie.
I guess I just saw it as fairly naturalistic, the whole naked infected kinda made sense to me and after a moment or two it stopped registering with me. I guess I watched the movie on an 85 inch TV, maybe it was more evident watching it on the big screen at a cinema.
Also the series has been fairly judicious with its use of femininity throughout I think the way that the female characters were put in jeopardy in the first film made it clear that the apocalypse held additional threat and danger for the girls and women after society had collapsed. I can see how given that framework this primal embodiment of masculine power and virility might hit some people hard.
I'd be curious how it landed with Europeans as opposed to Americans/English/Australians I wonder if the more puritanical views on nudity would show differences in audience reactions.
How would this new one hold up for someone who skips the second one?
No spoilers, please.
you’ll still understand it and enjoy it
28 Years Later is a self-contained story and it really won't matter if you've seen the prior entries or not. There are some connections and some references to prior films, but nothing noticeable or vital to understanding or enjoying what you're watching.
Spoiler free. I skipped the 2nd and didn't feel left out. Might have missed some easter eggs or some other details but not enough to dislike it for what it is.
Tough question. There are parts of the second one which is really good, subjective of course, but everyone I’ve spoken to agree the first 10 minutes is really good (was directed by Boyle).
To me the story is not connected, but still worth a watch.
It's the same writer/director as 28 Days. From what I understand it even partially rectons 28 Weeks.
I'd just watch the 2nd, I don't get why its so disliked, not going to say it was a masterpiece but its better than average for the genre. But I think there is more than enough c9ntext to watch any of them in isolation.
A lot of dong
The reviewer is not shy about how much they like it
Underrated, you win.
I loved the second movie. I will not apologize. That opening scene is insane.
No apologies needed, I absolutely agree with you, loved the first 10 minutes, middle was a bit meh for me, then the subway scene was really good to me too. I actually asked my wife if I did that what would she do, she said definitely not a kiss lol.
The only problem I really had with the movie was how often the father kept appearing everywhere. Like, just make it a random zombie and it would be way less ridiculous.
I was like "forgettable" how, it was a fantastic movie. Him running away still feels like a gut punch just thinking about it.
One of the best zombie movies out there
28 Weeks Later was a solid zombie movie, but in and of itself it was not a genre defining (or redefining) film. Also, I think zombie movie fatigue was already in play by the time it came out.
Looking back, you might think that there were only a handful of decent and recent-ish zombie movies at that time (and you'd be mostly correct), however, it was also an era where the new releases wall at the local video store would have been peppered with d-grade, knock-off, cgi zombie movies (a few of which even showed up in the theaters).
So, while I don't entirely agree that it was mostly forgettable, I certainly understand and think that's a valid opinion.
I thought it was excellent, watched it 8 or 10 times. I also like Jurassic Park III, so what do I know.