You might want to bring a pair of gloves when you walk in to see 28 Weeks Later because once it starts you’ll be gripping your armrests like you’re life depended on it. This is as intense and scary an experience as you’re likely to see all year, and I’ve seen Are We Done Yet.
I loved Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. It was a zombie movie with soul, stacked with good performances and an interesting final act where Boyle shoots his protagonist as if he were an “infected”. There are some laid back moments in the film where the characters get to breathe; we see the good in our race as well as the bad (there are times where humans are observed to be nothing more than bunch of scorpions left to play with one another in a sandbox).
For better or worse, there isn’t a laid back moment in this movie. This baby’s full throttle and deadly serious. It takes place (more or less) 28 weeks after the events in the original film. American forces are securing Britain. Even in the beginning where British emigres return home for “repatriation”, there is an underlying tension. You know what’s coming. You just don’t know how hard it’s going to hit. And how hard does it?
In a word … very. Nobody in this movie is safe.
Robert Carlyle plays a man who has been separated from his children during the virus breakout. Luckily, his son and daughter were on a trip abroad. They return in an emotional reunion. They miss their mother. What happened to their mother? Their father knows, but he can only tell them so much.
Then hell breaks loose. The virus takes over again. The American forces fail to contain it. It’s every man (or woman) for themselves, except for the ones willing to sacrifice.
The cast in this movie is strong. We don’t see enough of Carlyle these days and he’s very good as a man trying to keep his family together through this tough time. Meanwhile, Catherine McCormack, who I’ve had a crush on since Braveheart is a gift in her brief screen time (by the way … it struck me that given Mel Gibson’s tendency for borderline exploitive violence, he might make a good candidate to direct 28 Months Later). The kids are good, particularly Imogen Poots who plays Tammy. Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner, however, are the heart and soul of this movie. There just isn’t as much of it as there is in the original. This is a colder film.
Which is why, ultimately, I think the original is still the better, more original movie. But make no mistake, fans disappointed in 28 Days Later‘s softer undercurrent will not be disappointed here. This is a brutal, suspenseful flick. Once the carnage and cannibalism begins, it hardly every lets up. And credit Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (who made the terrific Spanish film, Intacto … seek it out, folks) for following Boyle’s documentary-like approach in the original film and amping it up with more frenetic zombie action.
There are, of course, some logic gaps to be found and there is a one particular continual coincidence that is a little hard to swallow but thematically it’s okay. These are small prices to pay, though, for the fun thrills this movie has in store. If the opening sequence doesn’t get your heart thumping, you’re either dead … or undead.
