I held off on watching this because I feel that zombies are way overused in media and it didn’t even seem like this adds anything new to the genre. I was persuaded my mind due to a friend’s recommendation and because I have a newfound appreciation for the work of Alex Garland. In the event, this turned out to be a perfectly cromulent action movie and a decent coming-of-age film. Thematically, it’s not that interesting despite an attempt to suggest a mythic link to England’s past. But it is entertaining and even does a bit of worldbuilding.

Twenty-eight years after the outbreak of the Rage Virus, civilization on the British Isles has collapsed but a strict quarantine has kept the rest of the world safe. One island community survives as they are connected to the mainland only by a causeway that floods at high tide. There they have revered to a pre-modern way of life, learning to use bows and arrows to kill the infected. Spike is a 12-year-old boy from the island and accompanied by his father Jamie, cross over to the mainland as part of a coming-of-age ritual to prove himself. They easily deal with some of the infected who have mutated to take on different forms but are forced to flee before a more powerful and intelligent Alpha. Back on the island, Spike is feted for successfully completing the ritual but is upset when he witnesses his father having sex with another woman. His own mother Isla is sick from an unknown condition that causes her mind to regress. He decides to sneak her out of the island to the mainland in search of a doctor who can cure her.

There have been a fair few attempts to depict post-apocalyptic scenarios in which civilizations rebuild after a zombie outbreak. Usually these are unsatisfying to me because they tend to be fragile setups that instantly breaks just so to give us an action movie, devolving into yet another outbreak scenario. So it’s pretty great to see a village that has adapted to the new reality with a security apparatus that has endures for decades and gives off every indication that it will continue to survive. It works because this is a coming-of-age story set in a world with zombies, not a disaster movie in which everything goes to shit. Spike could stay safe in his community and live out a life just like his peers. Instead he chooses to venture out into the unknown, to see for himself what has become of the world as armed and prepared as he can be. It’s a little crazy to me given the extreme danger he faces, but it’s his decision and it provides an excellent justification for plenty of zombie-fighting action. The action scenes are relatively grounded and believable. Spike and his father both have a decent grasp of what they can or cannot do and so are prepared to flee when it gets too dangerous. As I’ve noted, it’s more than adequate as an action movie.

At the same time, there’s no real larger point to it beyond being Spike’s adventures. There’s a touch of whimsy here as Danny Boyle cuts to shots of England in the medieval era. The people of this little village are perhaps channeling the famous longbow archers of the past in choosing the bow as their favored weapon against the zombies. But this is more amusing affectation than deep connection. Spike’s discovery of the doctor and his monument to death is evidently intended to resonate with audiences but felt pointless to me. I also found it highly implausible that the doctor could do all that work by himself and still fend for his own survival. I did like that it expands the setting. Other countries have realistically enacted a strict quarantine around the British isles. The infected are shown to be capable of breeding, which explains why there are still so many of them around after so long. Small groups of survivors have each learned different ways of fighting the infected. All very cool but it’s also obvious that they’re laying the groundwork to make this a continuing and no doubt profitable franchise.

Indeed this feels like incomplete, as if it’s just part one of a much larger story and a sequel featuring Spike is already out. I like it well enough as an action movie but I have little interest in another long-running zombie franchise. I was especially irritated that the opening scene turned out to just be be a red herring to set up for the next part of Spike’s story. I don’t regret watching this but I very much doubt I’d ever watch the sequels.