The Bone Temple is a question of perspective. A testament, of course, but to what? A henge of humeruses, a colonnade of collarbones, a monumental memento mori that celebrates the lives once led. Or their deaths.
The film will return again and again to the eponymous structure. We’ll spend time there with Dr Kelson, Ralph Fiennes once again walking that path of abandon and reserve that makes something fabulous of fragility. More than anything else it’s Fiennes, manager of the marrow-hall, that makes The Bone Temple worth seeing.
It has other strengths. It is perhaps a more conventional sequel than 28 Years Later. As a companion piece it does much less with young Alfie Williams’ Spike, despite his key role in proceedings as a newly recruited finger. That’s of a phalanx of fearsomely feral freaks, in service of Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who in turn serves a higher (or lower) calling. There’s no radio, but there are voices, however hard one might have to strain to hear them.
Chi Lewis-Parry as the Alpha, named by Kelson as Samson, is one of several whose moments with Fiennes produce magic. David Dickinson and Eddie have something to say too, but their fiery contributions sparkle in contrast to the wet certainties of Erin Kellyman and Emma Laird as Jimmies ‘Ink’ and ‘-mima’. Those tracksuited terrors of the Crystal cause all bear that name too, among the many signs and labels that abound.
With the previous sequel available through streaming and subscription services there’s time to catch that and visit this while it’s still in cinemas. Those who’ve enjoyed any of the latter 28… laters will find much here. Perhaps too much, as there are times when its story focus feels a little messy. That’s not for lack of connection, knee connects variously to neck, but from perhaps too many. There are threads unfollowed, clues still tangled; all roads might lead to this Rome of radii but not all paths do.
Musically there are strings among other things, but Hildur Gudnadottir’s score is outshone by needle drops. They loom large, and even the use of the original 28 Days Later theme on the credits carries a bit more than its worthy weight from recognition. Nia Dacosta has a good eye for action, but this is neither as brightly coloured nor as punchy as The Marvels. With returning writer Alex Garland she’s crafted something that approaches traditional tragedy. The rage virus just means everyone dies at the start.
The Bone Temple sits by a stream, if not a river. Whether it’s Rubicon or Rio Grande, what happens after crossing it matters less than the first splashing steps. Those who’ve seen Conclave or any number of his other works would recognise the wonder of watching Fiennes act, even and especially when he’s all that’s on screen, but it’s a particular delight to see him doing so in what’s still, at heart, a zombie movie.
As a franchise, indeed, a genre, there are good ones, and better ones, and the rest. Here we’ve one of the middle, though even as stripped as it can be because it has another film to support it, there’s sometimes a little too much. There are bits I adored. Who couldn’t love a character study with shades of Apocalypse Now that veers from the charnel house to a diegetic Eighties musical and into a Faustian double-pact? For all the bits and pieces there are some that felt underdone, but that in part is the problem of sequels. They have to find ways to do the things people like in ways that are at once familiar and new. Among its many perspectives The Bone Temple does find a few of those. As with other meditations from Frankenstein, the lines between man and monster are murky.
A grounding in the natural makes superhuman efforts a little harder to justify, but makes the contrasts between the various them and the variable us more telling. They matter less than that The Bone Temple manages to haunt and scare despite seeming grist for the mill of the market. It’s got more than a leg to stand on there.
Reviewed on: 21 Jan 2026
