The audience's connection to the protagonists of 28 Days Later made it a compelling experience. Tension in horror movies results from viewers caring about what happens to characters. Compare them to Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, and Brendan Gleeson from the first film, all of whom inhabited better developed and more sympathetic personalities. Robert Carlyle, Catherine McCormack, and Rose Byrne are criminally underused. The kids are generic and the script doesn't care much about the adults. The characters aren't as sympathetic or interesting. This film will not be used by British travel agencies to promote vacations to London.Ģ8 Days Later, while not terribly original, was suspenseful and involving. The overhead and long-distance shots of empty streets and abandoned buildings are creepy, but no more so here than in 28 Days Later. London appears grimy and washed-out: a dead, decaying city that at times would seem to be a comfortable fit into the world developed by Alfonso Cuaron in The Children of Men. (I have a sense that the movie might play better on a television than a big screen.)Īction scenes aside, the look of the film is faithful to that of its predecessor. Admittedly, there are limitations to what can be done in a zombie movie, but a whiff of originality or coherence would have been appreciated. As the movie approaches the one-hour mark, however, it turns into an extended chase, with people shooting, screaming, and being torn apart by the infected as they run around in dark corridors and tunnels and the viewer desperately tries to piece together what's going on. This is where we are given a chance to get to know the new protagonists and given insight into the plan to return London to a living, breathing city from the ghost town it has been for the past half-year. The first and better half of the movie is primarily devoted to setup and character development. military, including the lead medic (Rose Byrne), a sharpshooter (Jeremy Renner), and a helicopter pilot (Harold Perrineau), try to contain the new epidemic but it spreads too fast and too violently, triggering the ultimate solution: Code Red. 28 weeks later, the kids come home, but it isn't long before it becomes apparent the crisis isn't over. When their hideout is discovered by a group of infected, the cowardly Don runs off, assuming that Alice has been killed. The kids are in Spain during the outbreak, while Don and Alice are in hiding. Don (Robert Carlyle) and Alice (Catherine McCormack) have two children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton). Instead, we follow a new group of individuals from their first harrowing encounters with the infected during the initial terrorizing of Britain to their attempts to repopulate London six months later. What does it matter if a fight is well choreographed if the audience can't get a clear picture? (My complaint for the recently released The Condemned was similar.) In 28 Weeks Later, it's a source of frustration because I was interested in what was happening but the filmmaker's approach robbed me of the ability to appreciate any scene where there was a fight, chase, or other form of action.Ģ8 Weeks Later is a direct sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, although none of the characters from the first film have returned. It's a good way to cover mistakes and encourages laziness. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly more common. I wish this problem was restricted to 28 Weeks Later. I didn't realize a character had died until, a little later, it was apparent that person was no longer around. Also, the climactic struggle takes place in darkness, making it that much more difficult to decode the action. As if that wasn't bad enough, in the editing room, Fresnadillo ensured that no single shot lasted longer than about a second. Apparently, Fresnadillo believes that the proper way to film any action scene is to shake the camera violently and pan it wildly back and forth, thereby making it virtually impossible to figure out what's going on (and pushing viewers with motion sickness to the brink of voiding their stomachs). Sure, it's repetitious and much of it has been regurgitated from 2003's 28 Days Later, but it contains some interesting elements and offers enough gore that horror fans might have been able to enjoy it… if, that is, it wasn't for the stylistic approach employed by director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. In actuality, the screenplay for 28 Weeks Later isn't all that bad. Another week, another disappointing summer sequel.
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