Dr. Kelson finds himself in a shocking new relationship with consequences that could change the world as he knows it, while Spike's encounter with Jimmy Crystal becomes a nightmare he can't escape.
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman, Chi Lewis-Parry
Release Date: January 16, 2026
Genre: Horror
Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, graphic nudity, language throughout, and brief drug use
Runtime: 1h 50m
Review:
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the second film in the planned trilogy, takes the story and style in a different direction than its predecessor to effectively find its own voice thanks to a pair of contrasting but equally stellar performances from Jack O'Connell and Ralph Fiennes. Nia DaCosta takes over the reins from Danny Boyle behind the camera and delivers a brutal sequel that’s hauntingly beautiful at the same time. DaCosta takes a different approach than Boyle’s kinetic style with something more straight forward but just as visually impactful. She delivers plenty of brutal gore throughout especially from the Jimmy’s story thread but she counterbalances it with thoughtful, pensive beauty and a healthy influx of music with Dr Kelson’s side. Kelson’s storyline does offer more humor than expected thanks to Ralph Fiennes’s all in performance that plays as an incredibly nuanced character study. Fiennes delivered excellent work in the first film even with his limited screentime but he’s just phenomenal here with the expanded screentime. The character’s established empathy is further expounded on, but we get more insight into his mental state as he tries cope with loss of his former life and world. His relationship with the infected Sampson offers him a sliver of hope as he attempts to treat him with plenty of real-world subtext simmering underneath that story thread. On the other end of the spectrum is Jack O'Connell who fully embraces his deliciously garish villain that’s built a person army through violence and indoctrination. His character is mentally twisted but manipulative enough to have created his own Satanic cult as a response to his childhood trauma from the start of the outbreak. O'Connell give his Jimmy Crystal a sense of self-awareness especially when it comes to his belief structure especially when he comes face to face with Fiennes’s Kelson who is purported to be his father, Satan. When he and Fiennes share the screen there’s a delicate dance between the two performers after initial trepidation before finding common ground to speak to each other with a sense of honesty. It’s a fascinating sequence that leads into the film’s grand finale, which is a spectacle all on its own thanks to subverting expectations of where this would all go. There’s set up for the final entry which clearly hands off the baton but 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple proves to be the rare middle feature that stands on its own two feet with impressive confidence.
A
