28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the follow up to 28 Years Later. Do you remember how that one ended? With Spike joining a crazy, punk-rock cult of Jimmy Savilles? The ending promised a gonzo adventure yet to come.
Did 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple deliver on that premise?
Let’s find out. This review will contain some spoilers.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Danny Boyle eschewed directing this one. Instead, Nia DaCoasta (The Marvels) helmed 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
This reflexively makes one groan at the DEI’ness of it all as one is forced to participate in the notion that if only more black women sat in the director’s chair, the world would be healed, and UFOs would come to transport us to paradise, ala the Heaven’s Gate Cult.
Let’s take a moment to listen to the Testament song about that. It is thematically allowed because 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple goes metal at one point.
But I digress, such a reaction is unnecessary in this case. DaCosta does a fine job. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple looks like a movie. It has good performances. Nothing to complain about exists in this department.
The Bone Temple of Doom
Aaron Taylor-Johnson does not return for the sequel. That’s too bad because he never got a chance to show his abs in 28 Years Later. Maybe in the third film…
Alfie Williams does return as the kid character, Spike, along with Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Kelson, the iodine hippy from the first film who spends his days boiling bones and pontificating humanism.
Chi Lewis-Parry also returns as the Alpha Infected from the first film. He is called “Samson” in this one, but I prefer to call him “Dongle.” It just fits better…
No complaints about any of them. They inhabit the roles the screenplay assigns to them.
The rest of the cast is filled out by the Jimmy Saville cult. Erin Kellyman is the cult member who gets the most lines. My only familiarity with her is that I called her “Maya Rudolph” in a review I once wrote for Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Kellyman matches the others. She is fine. She brings some pixey psychopathy to the role, along with empathy for Spike. The rest of the cult members do not stand out. They are simply cannon-fodder. Emma Laird (The Brutalist) gets to do a Teletubby dance, at least.
The Bone Collector Temple
Jack O’Connell, fresh off his villain performance in Sinners, gets the most to work with as the leader of the Jimmy Saville cult. He is a satanist who travels the countryside and tortures people. He does not generate any villain pathos, like say, Hans Gruber in Die Hard. The character is a repulsive degenerate who should probably get the Joe Pesci treatment from Casino.
The one interesting aspect of his character is that he genuinely seems to believe his schtick, although it is sometimes hard to be sure. This brings up an interesting question. In a post-apocalyptic world, what type of belief systems would children fall into if they grow up with zero parental and cultural guidance, plus no access to information?
But 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is not here to answer such questions. It is just here to do stuff. It’s claims to themes of faith verses reason are mostly just shill talking points.
28 Years Later Alligator…
Where 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple falls apart is at the screenplay level. After the gonzo ending of the first, one expects a wacky adventure, but the movie doesn’t really do anything at all of any note.
You know how you can sum up a good movie with one sentence? For example, Die Hard is “about a cop trapped in a building taken over by ‘terrorists.’” Or Ben Hur is about “a guy who rides in a chariot…”
One is hard pressed to summarize 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple in a single sentence. Is it Spike’s story? Is it Fiennes story? O’Connell’s story? Is it Dongle’s story? Is it the story of a gated compound family who enter the movie and seem like they might do something, only to exit the movie and do nothing?
They Call Me Bruce Dickinson
One initial reaction to 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is probably, “eh, it was alright,” but then they might start thinking about it afterward and wonder, “Why was this movie even made?”
Because it shows that the 28 Days, Weeks, Years Later franchise is milked dry. Danny Boyle and the usually effective writer, Alex Garland, could have made new, and interesting movies, but they are stuck on this IP train to nowhere.
In the end, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a movie people will watch once and be reminded of it years later and think, “Oh yeah, Ralph Fiennes danced to Iron Maiden in that one…”
In the final scene, Cillian Murphy makes an appearance. One might consider this a major spoiler, but it’s not. He does nothing of note that has anything to do with the events of the film you just watched. He is simply there to try to keep a once gnarly franchise from rolling to a dead stop.
There is too much talent involved with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple to make it a total waste, but it is waste of the talent involved. It could make a dragon cry…
