28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is weird, but Ralph Fiennes is a legend

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Written by Denise Breen

Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a strange, claustrophobic beast. Serving as the second installment in the new trilogy (and the fourth film in the franchise overall), it abandons the sweeping, road-movie scope of last year's 28 Years Later for something far more theatrical, static, and arguably, bizarre.

While it boasts a mesmerizing central performance by Ralph Fiennes, the film suffers from tonal whiplash that makes it a fascinating, yet uneven, middle chapter.

To understand where we are, we must remember where we started. In Danny Boyle’s 2002 original, 28 Days Later, a bicycle courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma to find London completely deserted. A "Rage Virus," unleashed by animal rights activists, has turned the population into sprinting, blood-vomiting infected. The film was a masterclass in kinetic horror, focusing on the breakdown of societal norms. Jim, along with survivors Selena and Hannah, learns that the uninfected military—led by a tyrant who views women as mere vessels for repopulation—are often more dangerous than the monsters outside. It was a story about survival at any cost.

The Bone Temple picks up shortly after the events of last year's 28 Years Later. The narrative splits into two distinct threads that eventually collide. We follow the adolescent Spike, who falls into the clutches of a terrifying cult led by "Sir Lord" Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell). Modeled on a grotesque parody of and with disturbing echoes of Jimmy Savile, Crystal leads an army of child soldiers ("The Fingers") and claims to be the son of the Devil, or "Old Nick."

Parallel to this is the story of Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). Living in a fortified memorial—the titular Bone Temple, constructed from the skulls of the dead—Kelson is not just surviving; he is studying. He has formed a unique, dangerous bond with Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), a hulking "Alpha" infected. Kelson discovers that the Rage Virus doesn't erase the human mind but merely suppresses it under a layer of psychosis. By treating Samson with compassion and medication, Kelson begins to unearth the person beneath the rage, hinting at a cure that has eluded humanity for nearly three decades.

If there is a reason to see this movie, it is Ralph Fiennes. In a franchise defined by adrenaline, Fiennes brings a profound, melancholic stillness. His portrayal of Dr. Kelson is the film’s moral anchor—a man trying to preserve history (the temple) and humanity (the cure) in a world intent on destroying both.

Fiennes delivers a scene that will likely be talked about for years: forced to perform for the deranged Jimmy Crystal to save his own life, Kelson engages in a frantic, surreal dance to Iron Maiden’s "The Number of the Beast." In lesser hands, this could have been laughable. Fiennes, however, commits with such theatrical intensity that it becomes a moment of tragic absurdity—a cultured man debasing himself to survive a lunatic, yet retaining a strange dignity throughout. His quiet, largely non-verbal chemistry with the infected Samson is equally compelling, grounding the film's wildest sci-fi concepts in genuine emotion.

Thematically, The Bone Temple is the "Purgatory" of the new trilogy. If the first film was the Fall, this is the trial of the soul. It contrasts Kelson’s Memento Mori (remembering the dead) with Jimmy Crystal’s nihilism (erasing the past to become a false god). It asks if the infected are truly lost, or if we just stopped looking for them.

However, as a film, it struggles under the weight of its own ideas. The shift from the expansive terror of the previous film to this stage-play-like setting feels jarring. The villains are cartoonishly evil compared to the nuanced military antagonists of the original films, and the religious symbolism—crucifixions, temples, inverted crosses—is applied with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel.

Ultimately, The Bone Temple is a necessary bridge. It does the heavy lifting of introducing the cure, setting the stage for Danny Boyle’s return in the upcoming finale. It is a bold, artistic swing that lands only half its punches, saved from mediocrity by a career-highlight performance from Fiennes.