Almost six months after the ‘rage’ virus decimated the UK it is believed that starvation has resulted in the majority of the infected dying out. The U.S. Army have moved in and created a safe zone called District 1 on the Isle of Dogs and has slowly begun to move in displaced refugees as it continues to clean up the surrounding areas.

The caretaker of District 1 is UK citizen Don (Robert Carlyle). At the beginning of the outbreak we witness Don hiding in a cottage with his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) and some other survivors where he was forced to make a terrible decision to ensure his survival. 28 Weeks Later Don is now safe in District 1 and his children Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) who were out of the country at the time of the outbreak have been sent to this new home where they can be a family again.

However Tammy and Andy decide they want to visit their nearby home in London outside of the safe zone and set off a series of events that will have serious consequences for the refugees in District 1 and the Army soldiers trying to keep them safe.

28 Weeks Later is an interesting sequel as it achieves the goal of being an incredibly good film, whilst also being an entirely different type of film made by a completely different set of creatives from the first film. This is the bigger budget, larger scale and more militaristic sequel to the much smaller scale 28 Days Later. It features a much more famous cast with a more straightforward plot but still achieves the sense of edge of your seat tension that the first film achieved.

Writer Alex Garland and Director Danny Boyle handed over the reigns of the sequel to Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo who rewrote a script by Rowan Joffe with his collaborators Enrique López-Lavigne and Jesús Olmo. Whilst Boyle would direct the prologue sequences with Robert Carlyle and Garland would give input to the script they are only credited as executive producers in this sequel.

The plot is a much simpler affair that ultimately follows the fate of children Tammy and Andy in the still unfriendly streets of London. Their goal to get to a safe location and leave. Helping them along the way are Army Doctor Scarlet (Rose Byrne), Army Sniper Doyle (Jeremy Renner) and Army Pilot Flynn (Harold Perrineau). Whilst Idris Elba plays the soldier overseeing the safe zone itself. The only plot thread that looks to expand the story wider is the idea that there might be some humans who could be carriers of the virus but not impacted by it directly.

The result is tense and scary and something that builds very well on top of the structure and storyline of the original. It might not be in the pantheon of bigger, bolder sequels that Aliens or Terminator 2 are but it is highly effective.