28 Weeks Later (2007) Fox Atomic/Horror RT: 99 minutes Rated R (strong violence and gore, language, some sexuality/nudity) Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo Screenplay: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, E.L. Lavigne and Jesus Olmo Music: John Murphy Cinematography: Enrique Chediak Release date: May 11, 2007 (US) Cast: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Catherine McCormack, Idris Elba. Box Office: $28.6M (US)/$64.2M (World)
Rating: ***
Neither director Danny Boyle nor writer Alex Garland are involved in 28 Weeks Later, a sequel to their truly settling post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later, and it shows. It’s directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto) who also co-wrote the screenplay with three others. It’s a more conventional film this time around as it wasn’t shot on video like the first one. It doesn’t have the same sense of immediacy, but it still puts you right in the thick of the “zombie” (i.e. infected person) action with a handful of uninfected persons being chased by rage-fuelled beings and the military sent to the UK to maintain order.
The main thing that sets 28 Weeks Later apart from its predecessor is its protagonist, a father of two named Don (Carlyle, Trainspotting). He’s not a likable guy. When we first meet him, he’s holed up in a house with his wife Alice (McCormack, Braveheart) and four other survivors of the initial outbreak. When infected people attack, Don runs off leaving his wife behind. He doesn’t even try to save her. He’s ultimately the only one who gets away. Then he tries to cover up his act of cowardice by lying to his two kids about the circumstances of their mother’s demise.
28 weeks after the outbreak, it’s decided that it’s safe to start bringing people back to the UK in order to restart society. The new arrivals include Don’s teenage daughter Tammy (Poots, Fright Night) and young son Andy (Muggleton) who were in a refugee camp in Spain while everything was going on. They’re sent to District One, a safe zone heavily guarded by NATO forces led by General Stone (Elba, The Suicide Squad). They, along with all the other new arrivals, are ordered not to venture outside of D1. Of course, the siblings disregard the order.
Tammy and Andy, wanting to collect a few of their personal belongings, make their way to their old house where a shocking surprise awaits them. Alice, presumed dead, is still alive and uninfected by the Rage Virus. She’s taken into custody where military scientist Scarlet (Byrne, Try) attempts to find out why she’s not affected. It could be that she carries the cure. Of course, something goes wrong and the virus comes back with a vengeance.
Stone, unable to contain the virus, orders D1 to be firebombed. The few survivors include Tammy and Andy, Scarlet and Delta Force sniper Sgt. Doyle (Renner, The Town) who refused to follow Stone’s orders to open fire on any moving target, infected or not. Together, they try to make it safety. Unfortunately, Don survives the bombing too.
Shortly after it came out on DVD, I loaned my copy of 28 Weeks Later to a friend who later described it as a “train wreck”. He specifically pointed out the scene where a helicopter pilot uses the rotor blades to kill a bunch of zombies. He said it would never work in real life and went to explain why. WAIT A MINUTE! Does that even matter? Are we looking for realism here? Are we not watching it to be entertained? Yes, the first movie had a stronger sense of realism, but where is it written that the sequel must follow suit? Can’t it be its own movie? Sure, it can! And it is. I think the scene in question is cool. It would have been even cooler if Fresnadillo went with practical gore effects rather than CGI. I get that it’s easier to go with the latter for certain scenes, but it still takes something away from the overall experience.
Once again, the zombie attack scenes are wildly overedited. I get that Fresnadillo is trying to make the audience feel like they’re in the thick of it by presenting them as they’d be seen by the victims. He wants to make the attacks look fiercer as well. He succeeds to some extent, but it would nice to have a better sense of geography and relative position. Also, the whole idea of running zombies is contrary to the rules of the genre according to George A. Romero. Who wasn’t freaked out by the soulless reanimated ghouls in the original Night of the Living Dead? They might have moved slowly, but they would eventually corner their victims and do their thing. It’s still freaky after more than 50 years.
The acting in 28 Weeks Later is pretty much what you’d expect. Everybody does a fine job. It’s not Oscar-level stuff, but it works for the purposes of this movie. Carlyle does a decent job as the guilt-ridden dad whose display of remorse is a classic case of “too little, too late”. Poots shows spunk and resolve as the teen heroine whose sole concern is protecting her little brother. Elba isn’t in it too much, but he’s good as the military leader with the power to destroy everything he surveys.
Here’s the bottom line. 28 Weeks Later is a sufficiently entertaining zombie horror flick. It’s definitely better than any given installment of the Resident Evil franchise. It’s not Romero, but I doubt anybody will ever be able to top what he accomplished in the zombie subgenre. Fresnadillo seems to realize this and doesn’t even try to outdo perfection. What he delivers is flawed but good.
