This Week in Cinema (5.17.07)
The Low-budget 28 Weeks Later is fast-paced and predictable
By Beth Capper
Published: May 17th, 2007 | 3:20pm
These days, it's not enough for zombies to limp along, murmuring, “Brains.” We're so used to violence that these drooling, plodding vehicles for social commentary no longer cut it. Our zombies have to be ultra-violent and ultra-fast, and, most importantly, they have to be able to justify the cheap, shaky camerawork.
It was Danny Boyle's hugely successful 28 Days Later that introduced these 21st-century zombies to the screen — and they have since been borrowed to spice up Zack Snyder's remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. When 28 Days Later was released, I would never have envisioned that Boyle would make, or even consent to, a sequel. Five years since its 2002 release, however, Boyle and writer Alex Garland turn up as executive producers on 28 Weeks Later, set, as the title suggests, 28 weeks after the initial outbreak of the “rage” virus that has all but destroyed mainland Britain and obliterated the population.
The directorial seat is taken by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who directed the critically acclaimed Spanish-language feature Intacto. At first, Fresnadillo stays well within Boyle’s original aesthetic, and the first 20 minutes of the film are a welcome reminder of why 28 Days Later did so well in box offices. Opening at the 28-day mark, we are introduced to Alice (Catherine McCormack) and Don (Robert Carlyle) — a married couple holed up with a few other survivors somewhere in rural England. Luckily, the pair had sent their two kids off on a school trip sometime before the outbreak occurred, and they aim to wait it out in the hope that the infected will die of starvation. But Alice and Don are out of luck, and when their house is destroyed by a violent storm of infected, over-hungry zombies, Don abandons Alice to save his own skin and comes out the only survivor — or so he thinks…
Flash forward 28 weeks later: The U.S. military has taken control of Great Britain and declared it free of infection, but as a precautionary measure, all survivors are grouped together in a mini-utopia in London’s Isle of Dogs. Don has a job as a community caretaker and is eagerly awaiting the safe return of his kids from abroad.
In one of the many plot turns you can see coming from a mile away, Don’s children, Sally and Jacob, ruin it for everyone. They sneak out of the safe zone on their second day in and return to their old house, where Jacob discovers his mother alive, hiding in the attic. Alice, it seems, is the one person in Britain immune to the virus, but she’s still a carrier. Before Don finds any of this out, however, he strolls casually into the high-security military facility — where Alice has been taken — with nothing but a swipe card. One very sticky, salivary kiss later, and we're back to square one.
One of the features that made 28 Days Later so excellent was the fact that it was a pretty low-budget British film, instead of one of those horror movies Hollywood writers churn out on their lunch breaks. When the film was released, the horror-thriller genre was — and still is — fairly uncharted territory for British cinema. The result was a film that combined fast-paced terror with a generous amount of the scathing social criticism British filmmakers are known for.
In Fresnadillo's hands, the tint of Hollywood's megabuck brush is starting to show. Fresnadillo does attempt a half-assed reproach of the American military, who start shooting and firebombing at anything that moves once the alert becomes critical. However, he swiftly abandons it for burly hero Doyle, an American soldier who leaves his post to help civilians and becomes a kind of one-man army for Sally and Jacob. At times, 28 Weeks Later almost resembles an overlong advertisement for the U.S. Army.
Fresnadillo's film isn't a bad follow-up to the first, considering the direction the filmmakers could have gone with it, but he'd probably have been better off leaving it alone.
Issue #35
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