28 Years Later fans are divided over the film’s bizarre final moments, and the shocking reference to a UK figure that has prompted wider debate.
This finale comes as something of a coda for the movie, which by then has already wrapped up its main story. Indeed, this last sequence introduces a set of new characters due to star in the fim’s upcoming sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
While designed to be a set-up for The Bone Temple, which was filmed back-to-back with its predecessor, fans have criticised the ending as having a jarringly different tone to the rest of the movie. It’s this shift — from the emotional resolution of a key plotline to the “goofy” appearance of new characters — that has fans particularly split. Meanwhile, clear references to one of Britain’s most notorious figures in recent history have raised eyebrows.
Warning! Spoilers for 28 Years Later follow.
28 Years Later ends with young hero Spike alone, about to be attacked by a group of infected. Suddenly, he is saved by the appearance of a bizarre gang of fighters who act like they are in Power Rangers while wearing costumes inspired by the late British DJ and TV presenter Jimmy Savile, a former figurehead in British culture later uncovered as the serial perpetrator of numerous sex crimes.
The leader of this gang, played by Skins star Jack O’Connell, portrays a character named Sir Jimmy Crystal. He is revealed to be the leader of a cult named the “Jimmies,” whose followers also name themselves “Jimmy,” and dress in tracksuits with platinum blond wigs.
Some fans have criticised the sequence, which introduces the group who fight with ninja-like tactics, as feeling too tonally different, and too abrupt a change after the rest of the film.
“The last scene with the Jimmy gang kinda took me outta the film,” one fan wrote on reddit, in a lengthy thread on the film’s ending. “It was just too goofy with the insane acrobatics. The rest of the movie feels very ‘realistic’ but then that shit is so goofy I thought it was gonna be a dream sequence. It definitely killed the tone.”
Others, meanwhile, said it fit the theme of the overall series — and set up a dangerous new threat for hero Spike.
“Spike is fortunate to grow up in something of a structured society and when faced with his impending journey of manhood, leaves his toy Power Ranger behind, only to later encounter a gang of people who had society torn from them and never got to experience that journey for themselves,” another fan argued. “They worship figures like Jimmy Savile and the Power Rangers because it’s all they know of the world and thus have taken that on as their own personas.”
On the inclusion of characters dressed like Jimmy Savile, fans have pointed out that the 28 Years Later series of films specifically diverged from real history at a point that Savile had yet to be unmasked as a prolific sex offender. The suggestion, therefore, is that Savile is being referenced as just another lasting memory of Britain’s pre-virus culture — just as the film’s opening includes classic children’s show The Teletubbies.
In an interview with Business Insider, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland both addressed the ending and why Savile was used. Their response, reproduced below in full, suggests that it was a deliberate decision to highlight how the past can be “misremembered” — presumably with Savile becoming a cult-like figure instead of the truth about his life being revealed, while audiences will know otherwise.
@eammonj94 Danny Boyle + Alex Garland explain Jack O’Connell’s spoilery role in 28 Years Later… #28YearsLater #EndingExplained #28YearsLaterEnding #28DaysLater #28WeeksLater #Horror #DannyBoyle #AlexGarland #AaronTaylorJohnson #JodieComer #AlfieWilliams #RalphFiennes #JackOConnell #Sinners #HorrorMovie #HorrorFilm #Film #Films #zombiemovie #FilmInterview #FilmTalk #JimmySavile #Cult #CultMovie #Press #Work #FilmTok #FilmTikTok #MovieTok #MovieTikTok ♬ original sound – Eammon Jacobs
“The whole film, and if we ever get to make it, the whole trilogy, is in some ways about looking back and looking forwards,” Garland said, “and the relationship between looking forwards to better worlds or attempting to make better worlds, or trying to construct the world that you’re in on the basis of old worlds, so there’s sort of constrast or conflict between the two.
“And the thing about looking back is how selective memory is and that it cherry picks and it has amnesia, and crucially it also misremembers — and we are living in a time right now which is absolutely dominated by a misremembered past. And so it’s that.”
“He’s as much to do with pop culture as he is to do with sportswear, to do with cricket, to do with the honors system,” added Boyle. “It’s all kind of twisting in this partial remembrance, clinging onto things and then recreating them as an image for followers.”
“He’s a kaleidoscope, isn’t he, in a funny way,” Garland concluded. “A sort of trippy, f**ked up kaleidoscope.”
In other words, O’Connell’s cult are the product of a warped sense of British culture and identity that exists almost three decades after the collapse of society as we know it. Exactly what will happen next, however, and how these characters will interact with the returning Cillian Murphy (whose character, of course, is also named Jim) remains to be seen.
Boyle previously told IGN that O’Connell’s Sir Jimmy Crystal will play a “hugely significant figure” in next year’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which is due to release on January 16, 2026.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
