28 Days Later (2025) - An Apocalyptic Mess

   

28 Days Later (2025)

The trailer for this film fooled everyone a little, but I think I'm among the MOST disappointed of all. This is truly ass.
Not only is it a joke, but personally, it's a poorly executed joke. $60 million to make a movie with an iPhone, which, look closely, you can tell from a mile away was made with an iPhone. The premise was pretty cool, and from the first chaotic minutes, it seemed like everything was going well, but then the film really got going, and what I found myself facing shocked me. Terrible production, banal direction, and rather dated stylistic choices. Often, shots were out of focus, or the camera movements were shaky, or the cinematography was "not cinematic," rather homemade. I was still giving the whole thing the benefit of the doubt. 

This benefit was lost in the "return to the village" sequence, where elementary-school CGI, coupled with crappy, overly-maneuverable direction (with those fucking Northern Lights that you can't even see at the North Pole), and one of the worst editing in recent years made my skin crawl and my balls drop.
Which brings me to the second half of the film, where Danny Boyle and Garland do what any respectable writer would do: take the least interesting character in the entire film and give him an undeserved depth in a story that isn't his (obviously, I was being sarcastic). I'm referring to Jodie Comer, whom I didn't appreciate at all here. In this section, the bad editing, poor direction, and limp script continue to be there and become increasingly intense and pressing. With great haste, unnecessary scenes, cringe moments, and haphazard sequences, two new characters are added completely out of nowhere, including the soldier played by Edvin Ryding and Ralph Fiennes' doctor. While the narrative becomes a little intriguing and more captivating in this part, the cliched jokes and the omnipresent mediocre staging create a strange effect on the viewer. 

A wall is erected between the spectator and the film, leaving no room to fully appreciate our heroes' story. This leads to little empathy and therefore very little entertainment.
But if only that were all. The biggest mistake made was giving too much importance to an uninteresting character the viewer wasn't used to interacting with (oh yes, and conversely, completely abandoning another one who had immense potential).
The ending...let's not even talk about it...
Contradictory with everything shown up to that point and, above all, contradictory with the characters' choices made up to that point. 

Truly a giant "what the fuck." And the very last sequence? Clearly made for the sequel, due out in 2026, which, however, instead of raising expectations, sends them straight to hell.
In short, if Danny Boyle, with Garland's company, managed to give us some gems in the past, this one completely missed the mark. Yes, because this "28 Years Later," besides being a jumble of ugliness, is also a film that's an end in itself and doesn't want to tell the viewer more than what's shown... which... well, that's a really big fucking problem.