The critical thematic point of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later is when the small group of heroes, who have been evading the zombie hordes that have overtaken Great Britain, are rescued by a surviving human military outfit, only to soon discover this collective -free of oversight or consequence in their myopic and violently sexual delusions about rebuilding society- is just as dangerous if not more-so than the rage-infected automatons. It’s really the chief thing about Alex Garland’s script that makes it so potent -that damning conception of human nature under pressure. And it is the same thing that he and director Nia DaCosta bring back to 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which adds an additional layer of bringing a little more nuance to the zombies. There are two visceral violent sequences in the movie that stand out -one in which one of the infected tears off a human’s head and then cannibalizes it, and another in which a human gang ties up a group of fellow survivors and flays them. The former is far more palatable than the latter -it is an animalistic creature that does this sort of thing on instinct and impulse. Horrifying as it is, it is less so than the psychotic human being enacting his violence for pleasure.
The film immediately follows up the cliffhanger left by 28 Years Later. The boy Spike (Alfie Williams), having left his home behind, has been rescued from an attack of infected by a peculiar gang called the Fingers, led by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) -the boy featured in the opening sequence of the previous film. But this crew is quickly revealed to be a band of psychotic Satanists -as Spike is forced into a fight to the death with one of the ‘Jimmys’ as all of them are dubbed, which he surprisingly comes out of winning. This forces him into the gang however as they continue their assaults on both infected and survivors alike. This is contrasted with the continuing story of Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and his relationship to the pacified Alpha Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), in which capacity he experiments with a potential cure for the infected.
A very significant detail that might be lost on a lot of audiences outside the U.K. is the reason for the Jimmys’ moniker and uniform, consisting of a tracksuit and blonde wig -never formally explained in the movie. It was in fact the very ubiquitous look of Jimmy Savile -cultural icon, television host, and (exposed only after his death in 2011) one of the most prolific sexual predators in British history. Jimmy Crystal remembers him from the children’s programs he hosted -his only cultural memories are of children’s television, as evidenced by his equal fondness for Teletubbies. In this context, this iconography of Savile though shocking is brilliant. For those in the know it signals directly a darkness to this gang beyond their flamboyance. Though Jimmy himself couldn’t have known any of the truth to the figure he is emulating (the U.K. has been in a state of apocalypse since 2002), it follows along in very blunt terms that critique of hagiography from the last movie and how truly warped a thing it is, especially in such a context as this. Holding onto the old symbols for nostalgia’s sake in spite of futile circumstances was one of the defining traits of Spike’s community. The cosplay of Savile is no different in this respect than the portraits of the Queen -Garland casts both as symbolic of Britain, unsettling both to think about and to see live on through this harrowing time. Is that really a Britain worth preserving?
However, Garland and DaCosta contrast this pretty starkly with what appears to be their greater area of interest in this movie -the work of Kelson and Samson in the vicinity of that Bone Temple shrine to the lost. Once again, Kelson’s solitude and its psychological effects is emphasized, but expressed in a much different fashion than characters like the Fingers. Perhaps because he is older and remembers the world before (though as he notes he recalls details more than experiences) he has held onto his humanity and to a spectre of hope -principally through his interactions and humane experiments on Samson, the first zombie in this series drawn with understanding and sympathy. We glimpse his perspective and a sense of just why he (and presumably other Alphas) are so violent. But in one of Fiennes’ more tender and endearing performances, Kelson gradually extracts the humanity from Samson, who eventually comes to trust Kelson of his own free will, as a cure to infection genuinely begins to manifest. It is a perfect counterpoint in this movie to the action involving the Fingers -structurally a tonal release from the darkness and depravity of that subject matter, but as a thematic contrast of human nature under survival circumstances, resorting to benevolence rather than cruelty. Also, we get to see Kelson rock out to multiple Duran Duran songs.
It's one of a few manic things that Fiennes gets to perform in this movie, a healthy departure from the tenor of stoic gravitas he so often plays. And that is present here too to some degree, a mark of his intelligence and conviction; but he also plays around with the wilder sides of this character's isolationism, and the final act especially goes to some thrillingly deranged places, with Kelson in the act of a fearsome demon scaring the Fingers through amateur pyrotechnics and Iron Maiden. Though for insanity, he still can't top O'Connell who carries on the vivacious madness of his turn in Sinners (though with a Scottish accent instead of Irish), but modulated to an even sharper malevolence and who is at his most dangerous when vulnerable. It is a scary and thoroughly entertaining performance that understands well the governing idea behind this character.
Kelson and Jimmy are the focal points of the film such that the journey of Spike gets lost -which is a bit of a shame after the trials he went through in the previous movie. Williams gets less to do here as a mere frightened unwilling slave to the Fingers, who plays a part in breaking Jimmy Ink, played by a tough-as-nails Erin Kellyman -the one Jimmy with a heart and conscience- out of the band's clutches. But otherwise his narrative is put on hold for the duration of this movie as its themes take over.
One of the most interesting conversations that is had originates in that opening scene from the last movie and in particular the religious elements of it and the effect on the young Jimmy. Believing the infected to be a plague sent by the devil -whom he calls “Old Nick”, attributes the voices in his head to, and in this psychosis interprets him as his father (and thus himself as the Antichrist), we see in Jimmy a curious embodiment of faith. Under this bleak context of a frozen world of violence and desperation, the faith he was raised in as a child hasn’t solidified or sustained him, it has been warped by his circumstances. Catholic concepts of death, the devil, and damnation are the roots of his satanic theology, allowed to take hold via the world he has had to grow up in. Kelson however is his opposite, and the movie credits at least in part his atheism to this. Without any form of religious devotion and a more intellectual curiosity with the world, he has been unbeholden to any texts or aesthetics of end-times, merely accepting the apocalypse on his terms and free to maintain his humanity as a result. It is a curious anti-theistic notion though not completely divorced from things like age, experience, and nature -which have influenced Jimmy and Kelson in very different ways.
DaCosta holds little back with the violence and intensity, this movie being more vivid than the last -though it is crucial again that almost none of it comes from the infected, who apart from Samson have a relatively small role in the film overall. The story she and Garland tell though is no less engaging. Like Boyle, she leaves the film on a cliffhanger that will supposedly be resolved again by Boyle. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple may prove to be the most singular of this trilogy, but it is a sharp movie nonetheless and an apt exploration of the world and themes of humanity that Boyle and Garland set up nearly 28 years ago.
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