These 28 Years Later reviews tell you everything you need to know about the long-awaited sequel

The long-awaited 28 Days Later sequel, 28 Years Later, is set for UK release this Friday, but thanks to a lucky few who have already seen the film, reviews have flooded the internet.

28 Days Later, and the somewhat less successful 28 Weeks Later, are widely regarded as some of the best zombie flicks in modern history. Though it’s already been confirmed that Cillian Murphy isn’t reprising his role in the upcoming 28 Years Later, he’s said to be returning to the franchise for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple in 2026.

Before you head off to the cinema during 2025’s hottest weekend yet, here’s what the streets are saying about Danny Boyle’s new instalment.

Its Rotten Tomatoes score is seriously impressive

Credit: Discussing Film

When 28 Years Later reviews first started popping up, Rotten Tomatoes awarded it a score of 100 per cent. Unfortunately, this has since dropped to 94 per cent, though admittedly, that’s equally as impressive.

Reviews have rated 28 Years Later 5/5

Here’s a collection of 28 Years Later reviews from mainstream publications, most of which have called the flick “truly terrifying”.

In his review for The Telegraph, which he rated 5/5, Robbie Collin wrote: “Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour – very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 – to undercut the ambient dread. And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree_ serve as regularly nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle toy with the notion of a 21st century British national myth.”

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“Is this the most beautiful zombie film of them all? It’s hard to think of another that combines such wonder and outlandishness with the regulation flesh-rending, brain-munching and vicious disembowelment,” Ed Potton wrote for The Times.

The BBC’s Caryn James rated the film 4/5, praising Ralph Fiennes’s “scene-stealing” performance as they detailed: “28 Years Later is part zombie-apocalypse horror, part medieval world building, part sentimental family story and – most effectively – part Heart of Darkness in its journey towards a madman in the woods.

“It glows with Boyle’s visual flair, Garland’s ambitious screenplay and a towering performance from Ralph Fiennes, whose character enters halfway through the film and unexpectedly becomes its fraught sole.”

“Only Danny Boyle could pull off a film with a zany visual language that sees zombies as an allegory for a family’s domestic struggles,” wrote Comic Book Resources.

Metro also said: “One of the most triumphant ever revitalisations of a franchise that transcends the idea of mere genre. 28 Years Later is a brutally moving film, and the first horror movie to make me cry… It’s also a phenomenal piece of cinema.”

Of course, there are some haters

For every standout review of 28 Years Later, there have obviously been some haters claiming it’s derivative and boring.

“A little awkwardly, the film has to get us on to the mainland for some badass action sequences with real shooting weaponry – and then we have the two ‘alpha’ cameos that it would be unsporting to reveal, but which cause the film to shunt between deep sadness and a bizarre, implausible (though certainly startling) graphic-novel strangeness,” The Guardian said in its review.

For the Irish Independent, Hilary White rated the film 2/5 and wrote: “Boyle and Garland are obviously entitled to add a smirk or two, but they can have no complaints if the muddled tone flies over the heads of audience members.”

Letterboxd is its usual unhinged self

Credit: Letterboxd

True ones know that you have to go to Letterboxd for the real tea, and as expected, the review platform did not disappoint on the subject of 28 Years Later.

One person wrote: “Alex Garland, are you okay, brother? You know, you don’t only have to write stressful and tragic movies, right?”

“I know a d*ck when I see one’ is a choice of a line, considering the amount of actual zombie d*ck seen in this movie,” another said, which out of context sounds insane.

The least nuanced review on the internet reads: “I need to climb Aaron Taylor-Johnson like a tree omg what who said that.”

“You’re not prepared for the amount of zombie c*ck in this film,” another said.

So, what I’m hearing is, 28 Years Later is the best instalment in the franchise AND it’s got a lot of full frontal? Sold.

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Featured image credit: Sony