‘Thrilling’ sequel to classic post-apocalyptic movie lands very high Rotten Tomatoes score

You can read JOE's thoughts on the long-awaited sequel below.

The third entry in the post-apocalyptic survival horror series, the new sequel in cinemas now sees 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland return to the world of their 2002 Cillian Murphy-starring masterpiece. This is after they took a more backseat role on the also very good 2007 follow-up, 28 Weeks Later.

As can be expected from its title, 28 Years Later mostly takes place 28 years after the Rage virus escaped a medical research facility in Cambridge. This virus turns the humans it infects into angry, bloodthirsty, zombie-like monsters incapable of reasoning.

Nearly three decades after this incident, all of the United Kingdom is under strict quarantine, though pockets of people have managed to survive and form safe communities within the country.

12-year-old boy Spike (Alfie Williams, excellent) is growing up with his parents, Isla and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer), in one of these communities based on the real-life island of Lindisfarne, which is located off the northeast coast of England.

Also known as Holy Island, Lindisfarne is noteworthy for being connected to the mainland via a mile-long causeway that is only accessible at low tide.

Isla is suffering from an unknown illness, which is causing her severe headaches, hallucinations and memory loss.

As the sensitive Spike fears for his mother's health, he is whisked off by the more macho Jamie to take part in a ritual for young boys on the island. The goal of the father-son adventure: travel across the causeway to the mainland to give Jamie his first chance at killing a zombie.

On the mainland, Jamie learns about 'Alphas', a new evolution of the Rage-infected who are smarter and stronger. He also hears mumblings of Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, great in a role that is hard to talk about without spoilers!), a former GP living on the mainland, believed to have gone insane.

Thinking Kelson may be the key to saving his mother, Isla, the young boy embarks on an odyssey into an unfamiliar, destroyed Britain where danger is forever lurking.

28 Years Later is a near-perfect, consistently thrilling blend of story and style. Screenwriter Garland (an acclaimed director in his own right with the likes of Annihilation, Civil War and Warfare) is no stranger to tales of people venturing into hellish environments on a quest.

And with his latest work, he manages to find a fresh perspective on the apocalypse, just as viewers may have thought there were no new stories to tell.

In 28 Years Later, the ever-present zombie threat serves as a gateway to a surprisingly effective and emotional coming-of-age fable about the 12-year-old Spike.

Not only is the boy forced to come face-to-face with death for the first time, but throughout the narrative, he learns to think for himself, and not just follow in the footsteps of his flawed father and their Holy Island community, who are hinted at having maybe grown a little eccentric themselves.

Don't be surprised if you wind up shedding a tear or two on Spike's desperate journey to save his mother.

That said, 28 Years Later eschews mawkishness thanks to its impressively deranged and gnarly zombie set-pieces, as well as its ghoulish sense of humour.

Ever since his early work, like Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, Danny Boyle has been known as an energetic, dynamic filmmaker. Yet, with the help of his frequent cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, he pushes this dynamism to new pulsating heights with his latest.

From his furious smashing together of radically different camera angles, to his fascinating deployment of archival footage, to the haunting (if slightly underdeveloped) dream sequences, to the strange and always rumbling score by prog hip-hop group Young Fathers, no moment in 28 Years Later plays out as you expect, creating a deep feeling of excitement but also unease.

And you'd be right to feel uneasy because when the zombie carnage comes, it comes hard - something which should be expected given the movie's harrowing opening scene where a group of children watching Teletubbies in a living room find themselves a target of the Rage-infected.

Even more impressively, the film finds room for humour as some people Spike meets on his odyssey are more comic, including Erik (a scene-stealing Edvin Ryding), a Swedish NATO soldier whose boat sank nearby and who is very unhappy about this.

Plus, though Boyle's vision of a Britain descended into madness remains as haunting as ever, the director also finds pockets of dark fun within it (a Shell petrol station is shown with its 's' faded out, for example).

28 Years Later is intended to be the first part of a new trio of movies, which will eventually feature Cillian Murphy returning to the franchise. Indeed, he does not appear in this instalment at all, though there is another noteworthy cameo in the horror's closing moments that will have viewers eagerly awaiting the already-in-the-can 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

There has been a question as to whether 28 Years Later will be a big enough hit to round out this hoped-for trilogy. After all, Kevin Costner's planned Horizon franchise stalled after the first film flopped at the box office.

However, given the rapturous response to Boyle's latest (it currently holds a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes), we're dead certain the trilogy plan will come to pass.

28 Years Later is in cinemas now.