28 Years Later was advertised and had some trappings of a zombie movie, as per the longstanding series it rebooted. But instead the film took a left turn around the living dead to tell an odd, moving, Bildungsroman about grief and loss. Its sequel, 28 Years Later: Bone Temple is also a zombie movie that isn’t a zombie movie—though what it decides to be instead is less interesting than its predecessor. Nonetheless, writer Alex Garland and director Nia DaCosta are talented filmmakers, and they all but shout at you that you’re going to be entertained.
The movie starts just where the last one left off, 28 years after London has been reduced to a zombie-infested wasteland by an escaped rage virus. Young Spike (Alfie Williams), the hero of the first film, is captured by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), a Satan-worshipping psychopath. Crystal inducts Spike into his gang of thugs and off they go through the wilderness, finding and torturing survivors.
If that sounds familiar, it’s no surprise; though there are a handful of zombie attack disembowelments to keep fans engaged, this is more or less Mad Max with less inventive characters and costuming. Jimmy Crystal is a pretty stock sadist compared to Immortan Joe, and the blond wigs his gang wears can’t hold a candle to George Miller’s endlessly inventive biker apocalypse chic.
The evil-assholes-torture-people business alternates with a storyline featuring human survivor Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) as he completes his giant bone ossuary (more of a challenge to Miller’s visuals) and attempts to make friend with giant alpha zombie Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). The scenes of the charismatic elfin Fiennes and the charismatic enormous Lewis-Perry zoning out to morphine and the moon are fun to watch… though since Fiennes is white and the full-frontal-nude Lewis-Perry isn’t, the sequences also rather helplessly evoke pulp narratives about white saviors leading indigenous people to enlightenment and civilization.
Luckily, perhaps the movie’s commitment to its own themes and ideas is casual at best; Garland and DaCosta both seem more interested in a paycheck than in exploring any deeper material. There are a couple of meta-moments in the film that signal that everyone is aware that—in contrast to the initial installment—this is a theatrical exercise first and anything else is some distance behind.
The first signal is that each member of Jimmy’s gang is rechristened “Jimmy” when they join. Spike enters the film by having his name changed and changing his hairstyle, just as actors generally enter a film by putting on makeup and adopting a nom de guerre. The movie’s telling you that you’re watching a movie, and that the people in that movie aren’t themselves.
The second giveaway is an extended goth performance set piece by Kelson with flamboyant make-up, music, and special effects—which is also, inevitably, a flamboyant goth performance set piece by Fiennes. I don’t really want to give away more than that since this is the highlight of the film by a good margin and part of the enjoyment is in the precise corniness of the details. It’s hammy camp goodness, and the joy it takes in not being convincing just about makes up for the fact that the rest of the movie isn’t very convincing.
If you were hoping Bone Temple would be a zombie movie, you’re likely to be somewhat disappointed. If you were hoping for an individual artistic statement by DaCosta or Garland in the style of the first film—you won’t get that either. But if you mainly sat down to see some gory special effects and a completely over-the-top Ralph Fiennes, the movie delivers.