28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the rapid continuation of the 28 franchise, which burst back onto the scene in 2025. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reunited after not quite 28 years from their original zombie flick in the early 2000s. This time, it’s Garland and The Marvels director Nia DaCosta working together to serve as the bridge between the bookends of this final trilogy of movies.
She enters fresh off one of the best movies of the year with plenty of pressure to not only come back with a good film but to set up the next and final installment. Though it never reaches the heights of its predecessor, everyone involved does strong work to get us one step closer to what’s sure to be an exciting end.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Review
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up where its predecessor leaves off, with Spike in a state of flux and Dr. Kelson searching for a way to continue coexisting with the infected. Spike’s been picked up by the Jimmys, led by the charismatic and dangerous Jimmy Crystal.
This is primarily where the movie operates. Spike is trying to salvage his soul and get away from the sadistic Jimmy cult, but he is unable to at every turn. Eventually, their storyline mixes in with Dr. Kelson’s, which is a direct continuation of the 28 Years Later plot.
Kelson is once again played brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes, who is both delightfully weird and ridiculously human. He is bent on finding meaning in the end of the world by healing and helping, and he’s intent on providing whatever he can to the alpha Samson.
This functions as the emotional center, but it is juxtaposed by the delicious violence and sadism of the Jimmys. Crystal is played by Jack O’Connell, who manages to outshine even Fiennes when on-screen. He is wickedly charismatic, disgustingly humorous, exceptionally fragile, and stunningly violent all in one.
If you don’t have tickets for the Jack O’Connell bandwagon, get them. You’re already a little late after Sinners in 2025, but now’s your chance. He is electric. He commands the screen, remaining the most interesting figure even when sharing the screen with a legendary actor like Fiennes.
He perfectly oscillates between menacing and frightened. When he’s leading the Jimmys, O’Connell is sly, wicked, and violent. When he gets in private with Fiennes, his charade begins to crumble, and we see shades of the real Jimmy Crystal: that scared little boy from the beginning of the previous movie.
There is a fantastic dichotomy in the reaction to suffering in these two characters. Kelson is driven by his desire to heal, trying against all hope to provide some respite for Samson, hinting at his own personal desire for the same thing. Crystal is driven mad and leans fully into the violence of this new world, with some acts he and the Jimmys enact being painful to watch from the audience.
There’s also a really fun parallel between Crystal and Samson, who is no longer the towering, naked, angry brute he was in the first film. He’s still towering and naked, but there’s a humanization that begins to take place that is perhaps the most important plot development in this entire franchise.
With all that said, there is an overall feeling of less than. Comparison is the thief of joy, but when a movie’s sequel comes out less than one year later and is a direct continuation, those comparisons are inevitable. And when said predecessor was one of the best movies of the year, there’s inevitably going to be a bit of a letdown.
DaCosta doesn’t bother trying to emulate Boyle’s camerawork or his editing style. It’s for the best, as The Bone Temple has its own feeling and doesn’t feel like a cheap copy. However, Boyle’s is just a little better. In general, that’s how this entire thing plays out.
The cinematography is a little worse. The score is a little worse. The emotional beats hit a little less hard. The pacing is a little bit worse, partly because it moves briskly and doesn’t give quite enough time to linger in moments it would’ve benefited from doing so.
That’s not to say any of those things are bad. The cinematography is still good, although DaCosta opts to keep this story very closed off and intimate. We don’t spend much time with the sweeping landscape; instead operating almost exclusively in two distinct sets.
The score isn’t bad, either; it’s just not quite as good or emotional as its predecessor. All of this probably works to the film’s favor, since it helps it stand alone as its own, unique project from DaCosta instead of Boyle. There’s just no replicating near perfection this time.
Conclusion
28 Years Later was a phenomenal legacy sequel, and The Bone Temple serves as a worthy follow-up. It’s astonishing that this got buried in the January slate, which is usually filled with horrible movies just meant to pass the weeks. It hurls us towards an exciting climax, pitting two lost souls in competition for a young boy. But on a grander scale, everyone, including Kelson and Crystal, are lost souls trying to find their way in a broken world. Isn’t that apt for today’s climate?
Score: 4/5
