'28 Years Later: The Bone Temple' Sets Franchise Record with Rotten Tomatoes Score
The Rotten Tomatoes score for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has set a franchise record, an extremely rare feat for the fourth installment of any franchise.
Nia DaCosta’s sequel to last summer’s 28 Years Later is currently sitting pretty at a 94 percent critical consensus. That’s a significant improvement over the franchise’s three previous efforts. DaCosta’s sequel sits five percent above 28 Years Later’s 89 percent critical consensus and seven percent above the 87 percent critical consensus afforded to Danny Boyle’s 2003 original, 28 Days Later. And The Bone Temple has certainly charmed critics more than 2007’s forgotten, off-brand sequel 28 Weeks Later, which currently rests at a 73 percent critical consensus.
The Bone Temple has been praised even by those who were a bit iffy about Boyle’s structurally and formally experimental chapter, which hit cinemas last June. While 28 Years Later adopted a coming-of-age narrative that left a few scratching their heads about a perceived lack of horror (though we didn’t see it that way), The Bone Temple tells an admittedly more straightforward, bifurcated story that aligns in a sizzling third act. It also can’t be accused of soft-pedaling the horror, with a central sequence of extreme-but-earned nastiness which rivals anything in the Saw or Hostel movies and proves that humans inflicting violence on other humans is far more distressing than anything the rage-virus infected can perpetrate.
Critics have been impressed, to say the least, with DaCosta’s vision of a frightfully recognizable dystopian future. In our review, Men’s Journal raved that The Bone Temple is a genuine contender for the best film of 2026 despite having been released just two weeks into the New Year. “You’d have to be extremely hard-hearted not to be dazzled by this gonzo dystopian vision. It’s an intensely propellant, ideologically dense, and genuinely punk rock piece of work which features one of star Ralph Fiennes' most endearing and compelling performances.”
“The Bone Temple unfolds as a roaring synthesis of its predecessor’s tonal tug-of-war and a more calculated vision,” wrote Prabhjot Bains for RANGE Magazine. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is brutal, provocative and strangely thoughtful, proving that even decades into the apocalypse, the most dangerous infection remains human nature itself,” wrote Divesh Pharma for Filmfare.
“The creative team behind 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has made sure that the film isn't for everyone, but that doesn't detract from the fact that its outlandish premise is simply spectacular,” wrote Juanma Fernández París for El Nuevo Día.
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The lone negative review came from Vinamra Mathur at Firstpost. “The jump scares are few and far between, and barring Jack O’Connell, who chews the scenery with his deliciously wicked performance, none of the actors get enough meat in their characters or performances.”
But, so far, no one else has parroted that opinion.“It might seem silly to invoke The Lord of the Rings as a point of comparison, but Garland and Boyle—and now DaCosta—are working in a similarly mythic, epic register,” wrote The Ringer’s Adam Nayman. “The beauty of DaCosta’s film is that these particular ideas are worked in subtly, even though The Bone Temple itself is not what one might call subtle,” wrote Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri. The New York Times’ Alissa Wilkinson concluded with similar praise: "DaCosta’s talents as a director are a terrific, confident match for this material."