Reviewer: The Bone Temple is the best 28 Days Later instalment, led by Ralph Fiennes

A review of the fourth film in the 28 Days Later series, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, praises Nia DaCosta’s direction and says Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell deliver standout performances, calling the instalment the best in the chequered franchise. The reviewer singled out Fiennes’s dance to Iron Maiden’s "The Number of the Beast" as one of his most extraordinary moments and wrote that, at the screening they attended, the audience were on their feet.

The piece says the film de-emphasises traditional zombie business and instead foregrounds conflict between sentient human beings. The review sets the action immediately after the preceding film, in which a boy called Spike leaves a quarantined Holy Island and broods over rumours of a doctor, Dr Ian Kelson, who has created an ossuary called the bone temple.

It also notes that the earlier film ended with a twist critics could not mention because of spoiler rules. The reviewer describes a murderous gang led by the bizarre Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, modelled on Jimmy Savile, whose followers idolise the Teletubbies; Spike witnesses their ultraviolent behaviour.

Erin Kellyman is said to play a Jimmy disciple who is not wholly submissive. Fiennes’s Dr Kelson is described as having orange skin from iodine self-treatment and as trying to come to terms with an alpha zombie named "Samson" (played by Chi Lewis-Parry); the reviewer writes that Kelson’s gentleness and pharma stockpile reveal unexpected depths in Samson.

Key Topics

Culture, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'connell, Nia Dacosta, Holy Island, Iron Maiden