28 Years Later 4K UHD (2025)

[James Luckard]

The core thematic message of the film seems, to me, to be:

The communal memory of Britain and what it is to be British is a shared fantasy, distorted by time and nostalgia, and warped by inaccurate and incomplete information - perfectly illustrated by

[Show spoiler]the kids dressed as Jimmy Saville

.

The ending packs quite a thematic punch for those (mostly Brits) who got all the levels there.

[mikesncc1701]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

The gang of feral young people at the end,

[Show spoiler]led by the grown boy from the cold open, are all dressed like iconic disgraced British children's TV show host Jimmy Saville. The outfit is instantly recognizable to any Brit, but meaningless to anyone in the rest of the world.

Saville was a children's show host who was revealed to have been a serial abuser of children. He went from a beloved national uncle to one of the worst and most revolting villains in British history, and the reveal of his sick crimes traumatized generations of fans, so the costumes are absolutely shocking and horrifying if you get the visual connection.

More than that, the movie's zombie outbreak took place when the first movie came out, in 2002, and Saville wasn't exposed as a monster until 2012, so in this alternate world, nobody knows about his hideous crimes, and the young people dressed as him are just dressing as their youthful hero, unaware of the darker connotations connected with his iconic tracksuit. They all call themselves Jimmy, because they have only fond memories of him, presumably, a commentary on their distorted memory of their lost England.

This plays into a whole motif running through the film of what England is in memory and how it's changed or how it hasn't.

A few more examples:

- the movie very briefly features the iconic Sycamore Gap tree, memorably featured in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as still standing. It was famously cut down by drunken morons in 2023, but in this alternate world, it still exists, so in a weird way, the zombie pandemic has spared this icon of old Britain

- the townsfolk on the island still have affinity for the Queen, they have her portrait up in the town hall, even though she's certainly long dead

- the movie has frequent montages of footage from Olivier's Henry V, a movie about Britain at war that was itself made as a propaganda film to rouse the nation during Britain's existential battle for survival in WWII.

- that footage is intercut with old newsreel footage of British troops going off to fight in WWI

- the Kipling poem from the trailer and the film is a paean to the troops lost fighting for Britain in the Boer War

Boyle and Garland both said in interviews that the film is meant to be a metaphor for Brexit, and Britain's internal battle between wanting to be part of Europe and wanting to be a self-sufficient fortress island.

There's a ton going on here for a summer movie, and a lot of it is culturally specific to the UK, nothing more so than the

[Show spoiler]Jimmy Saville

references on which the film ends.

Brilliant. Thank you for that. I'm gonna wait close to The Bone Temple before rewatching it but I think this post will greatly enhance the experience. Thanks again!

[James Luckard]

I'll even go a step further and say that I think the desire to comment on Brexit is the main reason this film was made.

Boyle and Garland have said in interviews that they talked about a sequel for many years, but they never found a central idea that was compelling enough.

The actual narrative plot of this film isn't anything extraordinary, so I don't think that was the spark that excited them. I think it was the thematic core that inspired them.

This film actually takes the time to reverse the one major narrative contribution of Weeks - that the zombie plague spread to the continent. In a single sentence of voiceover, Years entirely erases that and says the plague was somehow fought back onto British shores, with Britain made into a quarantined island, while the rest of Europe progressed as normal.

The entire episode with the Swedish soldier, while also serving as welcome comic relief, is a huge statement about this that I didn't notice many critics commenting on.

The Swedish guy was a delivery driver there, he has an iPhone. The rest of the world was not frozen in 2002, the rest of the world lives in a recognizable 2025. It is Britain alone that has been encased in amber and regressed to some strangely primitive version of its romanticized past - thus the clips of Henry V.

Britain in the film has lifted the drawbridge (or had it hacked apart by its neighbors for their own protection) and has retreated into the past. The message about Brexit is present in flashing neon.

[Poya]

Funny. The metaphor certainly applies to us Americans atm.

[roscoe88]

From an American perspective, I interpreted the ending as “

[Show spoiler]beware the counterculture seeking to reclaim the past,

” so despite the subtle British context, the choice to lead with that into an American directed sequel seems intentional.

I avoid trailers and news for upcoming movies, so it’s on me for not knowing there are installments planned. But the more I read about it, it reinforces what I felt at the end of part 1: franchise fatigue. Then part 3 is dependent on the success of the sequel? Sounds like a marketing gimmick cooked up by the studio to commercialize one of my favorite properties. Shut up and take my money, I guess.

[Poya]

I'll put it this way regarding the ending:

[Show spoiler]the gang dressing up as Jimmy Saville when they don't know what his crimes were is the equivalent of an American gang dressing up as R. Kelly under the similar circumstances.

[darichestman]

Just canceled the steelbook it costs too much so I got the regular edition

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by Poya

I'll put it this way regarding the ending:

[Show spoiler]the gang dressing up as Jimmy Saville when they don't know what his crimes were is the equivalent of an American gang dressing up as R. Kelly under the similar circumstances.

In reality, the world became aware of his actions in 2012. The infection/apocalypse in the 28... series of films happened way before that. In the 28... cinematic universe, the revelation never occurred.

[maverick22]

Watching Days on Netflix to begin with as I have never seen any of these.

Goodness gracious - gotta be one of the ugliest looking things I have watched. Literally, my eyes can barely handle it.