09-01-2025, 03:56 PM
Just got back from watching 28 Years Later and figured I’d drop my thoughts here.
Overall? Solid. Not a masterpiece like the first (28 Days Later still reigns supreme), but it’s not a total cash-grab either. The special effects were better than I expected — didn’t have that cheap “AI-slop filter” look that a lot of movies are falling into lately. The blood, the chaos, the ruined cities… it actually felt tangible, which helped pull me in.
What I really dug was the father-son dynamic. That relationship gave the story some real weight — moments where the movie slowed down and remembered that this whole franchise is about humans trying to hold onto scraps of connection when everything else falls apart. That part landed.
Where it lost me a bit was the “alpha-zombie” angle. I get it, you need to escalate after 28 years of infection lore, but it felt like a cheesy cop-out. Instead of the grounded, terrifying unpredictability of the original infected, we suddenly get boss-battle type creatures. Didn’t ruin the movie for me, but it cheapened the dread a little.
And the ending… man. Dumb. Completely shattered immersion. They tried to go “big” and shocking, but it came off more like a studio note than an organic conclusion. After spending two hours buying into the world, it was like the film yanked the rug out just to wink at me. Left me walking out of the theater shaking my head.
That said, it’s worth watching if you’re a fan of the series. It’s better than I feared, worse than I hoped. Some strong moments, some lazy ones. If nothing else, it proves there’s still some life in the infected apocalypse genre — even if it stumbles on its way there.
Rating: 6.5/10 — good, but the original is still king.
Overall? Solid. Not a masterpiece like the first (28 Days Later still reigns supreme), but it’s not a total cash-grab either. The special effects were better than I expected — didn’t have that cheap “AI-slop filter” look that a lot of movies are falling into lately. The blood, the chaos, the ruined cities… it actually felt tangible, which helped pull me in.
What I really dug was the father-son dynamic. That relationship gave the story some real weight — moments where the movie slowed down and remembered that this whole franchise is about humans trying to hold onto scraps of connection when everything else falls apart. That part landed.
Where it lost me a bit was the “alpha-zombie” angle. I get it, you need to escalate after 28 years of infection lore, but it felt like a cheesy cop-out. Instead of the grounded, terrifying unpredictability of the original infected, we suddenly get boss-battle type creatures. Didn’t ruin the movie for me, but it cheapened the dread a little.
And the ending… man. Dumb. Completely shattered immersion. They tried to go “big” and shocking, but it came off more like a studio note than an organic conclusion. After spending two hours buying into the world, it was like the film yanked the rug out just to wink at me. Left me walking out of the theater shaking my head.
That said, it’s worth watching if you’re a fan of the series. It’s better than I feared, worse than I hoped. Some strong moments, some lazy ones. If nothing else, it proves there’s still some life in the infected apocalypse genre — even if it stumbles on its way there.
Rating: 6.5/10 — good, but the original is still king.