28 Weeks Later
by Jason Revill
Ever since Shallow Grave came out on VHS back in the day I have loved Danny Boyle’s work. Sure there’s been a miss or two but with Shallow Grave early on, then following it with Trainspotting, Millions, and of course reinventing the zombie flick in 28 Days Later. When I heard they were making the sequel with 28 Weeks Later I thought that it seemed unnecessary, but I had faith that Danny could pull it off. Upon finding out later that he wasn’t directing I became apprehensive and once again it seems that my gut instinct was correct.
After the initial outbreak of the Rage virus, Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife have hunkered down with a few other survivors in the English countryside. When the infected begin breaking into the house everyone scrambles to save their lives. Don fights as long as he can to buy the others time enough to get away. Unfortunately he is left with the choice of dying in a futile attempt to save his wife or escape so that his children will have someone to raise them. He escapes and 28 Weeks Later, when his children return from the European mainland he is there to greet them. Don now holds an important position in the small American military controlled Green Zone inside of London. His children are warned that even though all the infected have starved to death the area outside the Green Zone is diseased and littered with rotting corpses and roving packs of wild dogs. Despite the warning, they venture out to see their old home and find someone alive. Unfortunately, this survivor is a carrier of the Rage virus, starting the outbreak all over again.
This has to be one of the worst sequels ever made even including Teen Wolf Too, Staying Alive and anything with Electric Boogaloo in the title. First off, there’s the whole ham fisted Iraq war allegory. The problem is you can’t call something a metaphor when you say, “Hey, this is the ‘Green Zone’, get it?” That’s just flat out saying what it is, and if you’re only going to go that far, then why bother at all? After that’s said, it’s as though the film wants to make a point about an over aggressive military, but can’t pull it together enough to do so and actually makes the only soldiers who get any screen time sympathetic characters.
In general, this is just a lazy attempt. The direction relies far too much on frenetic camerawork and silly gimmicks like having to walk down an escalator covered in rotting corpses in pitch darkness, while murderous zombies are running around town. Seriously, that’s best plan they could come up with. That’s just one example of ridiculous character choices in an, let me reiterate, extremely lazy script. Here’s another: after hearing that the area outside the Green Zone is essentially a diseased wasteland with vicious wild dogs roaming around these two kids think that it would be a great idea to sneak passed the guys with big ass machines to go to their old house to get their ipods. What kills me is not only do they do it, but the military sees them leave and let’s them go. These two jackass kids are gone long enough to wander around, steal a moped from a dead shop owner and hang around their house before they are rounded up. And for the record I refuse to believe that any teenage girl would reach into the pocket of a rotting corpse to get the keys to a moped. A Mercedes, maybe, but not a moped.
The thing that’s most annoying is the fact that Robert Carlyle is set up to be sort of a tragic hero, but instead he quickly gets infected and turns out to be an apparent evil zombie genius. They guy is not only able to master the use of key cards, but he literally turns up everywhere. If there’s a key plot point ubiquitous zombie Robert Carlyle is there. There are even times where the main characters jump in a car and drive, when they arrive at their destination there he is. He’s set up to be the face of the zombie infection so that the audience has someone to hate, but the whole time I can’t help but think that he’s actually the victim. These two kids should be the bad guys, after all they are the ones who are entirely responsible for the outbreak in the first place.
I’m really sorry, but this is a bad movie. I didn’t even get into the insanely silly twist that allows the outbreak to begin or the fact that at one point zombies are chopped up in the blades of a helicopter. Didn’t we just see that exact thing pulled off better and played for laughs in Grindhouse’s Planet Terror? I can’t suggest anyone, especially those who are fans of 28 Days Later, go see 28 Weeks Later. What was great about the original is that it was more about a journey of survival whereas this one is about two douche bag kids doing something insanely stupid and countless people dying and Britain being abandoned entirely. If you end up missing 28 Weeks Later don’t worry, because they shamelessly set us up for an obvious sequel. Fantastic.
The Grade
- Story: D
- Acting: C
- Visuals: C-
- Originality: C-
- Enjoyability: D-
- Overall: C-
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