If you liked that Jimmy cameo in 28 Years Later, boy you get more Jimmy in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. The sequel follows Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) leading his gang of Jimmys, and it’s not pretty. They are arguably more dangerous than the infected roaming the English countryside, because the Jimmys are still capable of reason but just choose violence.
But, to contrast them, there’s more Ian (Ralph Fiennes) too. He’s reaching the limits of medicine but has a breakthrough with Sampson (Chi Lewis-Parry). These worlds collide in a musical finale that asserts how uncivilized the world became in almost 30 years.
As each of the 28… Later films explored an aspect of societal collapse, The Bone Temple explores isolation in the wilderness. Both Ian and Jimmy Crystal made homes their own way, but they’re not the communities introduced in the 2025 film trying to fashion a sort of civilization. They’re the extremes of what isolation can do, Ian for goodness and the Jimmys for evil.
Nia DaCosta’s film is evocative in 4K. Jimmy Crystal is introduced shrouded in pure black lording over the fight in the empty pool. Ian’s lantern lit bunker is shrouded in deep shadow too. The country is beautiful during the day, but turns hellish by moonlight, with bone towards extending into the deep night sky. Those gushing knife wounds bleed gloriously too.
Surround sound places the viewer in the middle of hordes and Jimmys. Rustling leaves in the wind and fire crackling are also immersive.
Three behind-the-scenes featurettes totalling 17 minutes touch on DaCosta’s immersion in the original film and technical differences between each entry. The cast speaks about the film’s themes, with Fiennes especially rhapsodizing about its depth. One deleted scene takes place immediately after Jimmy Crystal and Ian’s first encounter, and a gag reel suggests the enormous pressure to get those intense scenes right.