“Memento Mori,” Ancient Latin phrase saying, “Remember death.”
Death is everywhere in director Danny Boyle’s sequel, “28 Years Later.” The numerous skulls in one sequence are testimony that this is not just a zombie film but rather a study of how we face death and honor it.
Initially a group of survivors from the plague of 28 years ago find a small island and send out a father and son to the mainland: 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) accompanies his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor Johnson) to kill some evolutionary subculture of once-humans as a coming of age for Spike and future guard against these infected zombies.
Although the landscape of Northern England and the Scottish Highlands contrasts the grim world from which the duo have come, the beautiful, dense foliage is hiding the worst that human have become—naked zombies and fat ground crawlers, all bent on killing that seems their only occupation besides eating their targets. Indeed, the plague has captured souls that once held promise for civilization. It is a descent into madness whose only outcome is death.
Boyle and writer Alex Garland may be commenting on our current interest in macho, manly madness fomented by extremists of any ilk. Spike, while a 12-year-old of smarts and sensitivity, has little love of the sport; he eventually must avoid his own death by being a reluctant marksman.
Death in the form of his mother, Isla’s (Jodi Comer) mysterious ailment forces him to strike out to find the out-there Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), perhaps the only hope in the film except in the slightly cliched ending. Even that hope emphasizes the need for cooperation in survival, not only the family unit but also the barricaded survivors reacting with militarized precision and cooperation to the zombie onslaught.
Although the movie’s action emphasizes the struggle to survive, Boyle and Garland have larded it with familial love as an essential ingredient and a strange need to respect death, as the doctor describes it and humanizes it. Spike’s love and care for his mother are admirable, a stark contrast to the zombie mindless slaughter and even his father’s disrespect of Spike’s mom.
As in super-hero films, this post-apocalyptic tale illuminates the need to survive, not just from zombies but also to preserve the family if anyone is to find home.
28 Years Later
Director: Danny Boyle (127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire)
Screenplay: Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Civil War)
Cast: Jodie Comer (The Last Duel), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave, Schindler’s List)
Rating: R
Length: 1h 55m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com