28 Weeks Later - 2007
Posted on February 23, 2008 at 8:06 pm by Administrator
Fifty years from now, when we look back on the movies of this first decade of the millenium, we will compare them to the science fiction of the seventies. Bleak. Downbeat. Realistic.
28 Weeks Later is a stylistically brilliant example; aesthetically beautiful from lighting to editing. As a sequel, it remains visually and cinematically true to the original, 28 Days Later (2002) in it’s desperate depiction of survival in a post-apocalyptic London which has been virtually wiped out. There is no joy, no future, no hope.
The storyline picks up right where the original left off, but with a new set of characters. Great Britain has been destroyed by the infection, but the infected who wander the streets eventually starve to death. Under the direction of a U.S. led NATO force, the reconstruction of London begins. But it seems the claims the infection had run it’s course were far too optimistic.
This movie will make you squirm in your seat. The main characters, a family trying to survive and stay together, take you on a kind of emotional roller-coaster to a very sensitive place, which in turn makes the gory scenes of unbelievable violence all the harder to take. When Don (Robert Carlyle) is infected, transforms into a zombie, and then proceeds to gouge out the eyeballs of his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) with his thumbs, I almost gave up. Fortunately, I was watching with a group of friends and couldn’t just turn it off. I was glad to see it got better, although it is violent and gory.
28 Weeks Later does have it’s shortcomings. First and foremost, no Cillian Murphy. His role in the original pulled you in and kept you for the duration. The sequel suffers from it’s own serial-killing… all of our heroes end up dead in a relentless parade of uber-violent death scenes, including the aforementioned thumbs-in-eyes bit, the obligatory throat-tearing and limb-eating scenes we’ve come to expect from Zombie movies, and the immolation of an American Soldier with a flame-thrower. And just in case you’re not grossed-out enough, we also get countless head and chest explosions from high-caliber firearms, and the topper–the killing of dozens of infected with the blades of a helicopter. And at it’s core, the zombie premise limits the movie to the standard zombie-film mold–it’s a chase flick.
Like the original, 28 Weeks Later is loaded with societal parallels and ponderings, including homeland security, illegal immigration, and civil liberties. Like the movies of the seventies, this story mirrors reality in a difficult time–the implication being the thinking citizen has disappeared and has been replaced by blood-thirsty autmomatons. Where are the powers of good? Where are the voices of the righteous? But perhaps I’m over-thinking it.
*** Three Stars ***
