Perhaps in honor of All Hallows' Eve (or because it happened to come up on my Netflix), I watched 28 weeks Later last night. Not a bad little flick, but it suffers from a confusion of personality.
The plot -- as the film opens, we see a cottage in the English countryside, from the inside -- Don (Robert Carlyle) and Alice (Catherine McCormack) are preparing their dinner, for themselves and their fellow refugees, an elderly couple, a young man and a young woman whose boyfriend ran away a few days ago. Don and Alice note that they hope their kids are safe -- they had gone out of the country just before the outbreak. A boy knocks on their door, looking for safety, and bringing with him the "Infected" - aka our happy zombies (who can run like leopards). Don escapes, leaving the rest - including his wife - for dead, regrettably.
Flash ahead. The virus spreads over the 1st 28 days; by 5 weeks, the infected are dying from starvation; by 24 weeks, the Americans are in London, starting the "Reconstruction." Don is now the head engineer, running "The Green Zone" on the Isle of Dogs in London, the clean area. His kids have arrived, happy to see him, saddened by the loss of their mother (whose interesting eye pattern the son, Andy, shares).
We meet a few others - Major Scarlet (Rose Byrne, in what is seeming to be her role from Sunshine as the strong little girl), the chief medical officer; Doyle, a rooftop sniper with the US Army; Flynn, a chopper pilot; and the General Stone, who lets Major Scarlet know that if the virus comes back, there is always "Code Red" (which we know we'll see soon enough).
The kids, Tammy and Andy, decide to break the rules and leave the island, hoping to get keepsakes from their home in London. At home, more than memories wait -- their mother is there, bitten but not infected.
The kids and Alice are brought to the Green Zone in isolation. Major Scarlet has an about-face; instead of being fearful of Alice - who has confirmed virus in her saliva and blood - she looks to her as a possible cure. The general is single-minded; Alice must be destroyed. Before he can take of this himself, however, Don, with his All-Access card, has visited Alice and received a final kiss, literally. He promptly becomes an Infected, and the virus spreads. After an initial attempt to contain the virus, Code Red starts -- total elimination of the infected and those at risk, totaling 15,000 innocents.
The remainder of the film focuses on the small cohort of Andy and Tammy, Scarlet, Doyle, and a couple stragglers (the Ensign Number 1's of the group), trying to get to safe ground, where Flynn waits to take them away (initially refusing to take the kids, but finally conceding). After them are the US Army, seeking to literally burn them dead, and Don-zombie, surviving firebombing and gas to hunt down his children. The numbers, expectedly, shrink, as the kids become braver and survive, "together." After a final climax, escape awaits them -- or does it?
The original film, 28 days Later, written by Alex Garland, helmed by Danny Boyle, and starring Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson, had numerous advantages. It lead the return of the zombie movie, had a spectacular script and a skilled director and actors committed to the tale. But, most importantly, the real monsters weren't the zombies but the people, the evil that can arise when the rules of society are lost. This sequel, helmed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose best-known film was a Spanish thriller Intacto of adequate quality, falls into formula. As the terror starts, we know who will survive and who will not (namely, almost everyone). Robert Carlyle, the most-senior actor, spends most the film foaming blood from his mouth, bizarrely self-aware in a way no other zombie demonstrates. Doyle (Jeffrey Renner) is the soldier with a heart of gold; Byrne plays the role she may very well get typecast into if she's not careful (see The Goddess of 1967 to see her best).
The most unfortunate quality of the film is its confusion. It wants to be a political commentary, highlighting the cruel nature of the military. The irony here is that the military is doing what should be done, preventing spread from the island to the rest of the world, in the only truly effective manner; it doesn't work because people think they can be an exception, that they deserve to survive because they're "special." It wants to be a movie about family, where the father is a monster, literally, and the kids can show their strength when push comes to shove. It wants to be a horror flick, shakey-cam and all. As a result, these pulls cause a herky-jerky film, where some alternative editing would have smoothed the film.
There are strong points. The cinematography and shooting angles are fantastic (except the Nightvision scenes near the end, a trite convention used when our patience is wearing thin). Doyle's character is admirable, and the General, though underused, exudes a necessary strength. And (spoiler alert):
The basic premise is not sacrificed for a happy ending, in the end.
Worth the rental, probably best as a double-feature with its predecessor. But it won't be a part of my collection.
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