28 Weeks Later is a perfect example of what I like to call the “Blair Witch Project Effect.” That is when a low budget indie film is given a big budget glossy Hollywood sequel, and the resulting film lacks all the magic of the original. One of the things that made 28 Days Later so great was the shots of deserted London. It felt creepy and real, or maybe it felt creepy because it felt real. And don’t get me wrong, 28 Weeks Later has some incredible shots of the deserted city, which is much more expansive than the first film. They had the money and resources to make it happen. And may-be it’s because it looks almost too good, too glossy, that it just isn’t believable.
The film starts off with the best horror opening since Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, and quickly falls apart soon after. Too many characters and quickly introduced, few of whom you find connection. Who are these people? What are their roles? You probably wont know who the main character is until 30 minutes in. It’s both confusing and frustrating. The story degenerates into a horrible series of badly scripted coincidences, including the token identifiable Zombie bad guy who keeps showing up like a bad penny.
Like the first film, the story becomes very episodic and quickly evolves into a militaristic story half way through (although, 28 Weeks Later keeps with the Zombie chase more than the first film). And like most films in the Dystopian story genre, there are a lot of cool ideas displayed, but not fully explored.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo offers a few new tricks in terms of cinematography including a reverse Requiem for a Dream/Pi P.O.V. cam showing a Zombie in action. And he even borrows the cool Chopper sequence from Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror. But sometimes the camera direction is too shaky, seemingly just for effect. One sequence has flashing strobe lights which were so intense that I was forced me to look away from the screen (and I’m far from squeamish).
/Film Rating: 6 out of 10
May 13th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I really don’t understand the fascination people have with this movie. Sure the prequel had some interesting scenes, but this movie just seemed a bit ‘amateurish’ with its completely unnecessary, cheap, MTV-style shaky camera tricks and strobe lighting. And how can one man, even with an all access pass, get into a PC4-level biohazard area? Never before has the American millitary been portrayed as being so idiotic before. And finally, the so-called ‘zombies’ - they are not zombies - zombies do not die of starvation, and do not run around like Olympic athletes. Zombies are supposed to be the walking undead, not psychotic cannibals with a haemorrhagic fever. And no virus can infect someone in 5 seconds. For any virus to take effect, it needs to bind to surface antigens, enter the cells, and replicate - it is not until the virus particles reach a certain level that you start to see any symptoms - even a fast-acting virus like ebola needs to incubate for a few days before you start seeing anything.
End of rant.
May 13th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
To the person above, just wanted to respond to a few points you brought up.
- While i see the point your trying to make with the comment “MTV-style shaky camera” i don’t think you really make much of a point. The handheld style camera is meant to give certain shots a documentary-like feel, as if your helming this camera, running after people. I personally enjoy this effect when it is used sparingly, and although it might have been a little overused, i think it was still effective.
- The film never refers to them as zombies, only as the infected. The whole idea is that these are not the living dead these are people infected with a virus. It’s meant to take a different direction than other zombie films by playing with conventions established in the first film.
-Its possible that some new virus could be faster-acting than any current virus, its not like everything we know about the biological world is set in stone. Science is meant to adapt to new discoveries, maybe someday we will find a virus that effects a person really fast? Anyway it also helps to plot move along.
end of rant?
May 14th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I enjoyed the first film and i liked 28 weeks later better. I think a lot of people just see it as a big buget sqeuel to a indie classic and assumed it was going to be terrible. When you go in looking for holes and assuming the movie will be bad your not gonna like it. 28 weeks later is better paced, and much more intresting. Its not going to have the orginallity of the first but it was a great movie.
With all of that said i will admit the way the infection intially starts could have been better and they could have changed the infected in some way to make it unique like the original. All in all i liked 28 weeks better.