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28 Weeks Later (Full Screen Version)

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28 Weeks Later... (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007)

So Alex Garland didn't write the 28 Days Later... sequel, nor did Danny Boyle direct it. I felt a bit better about this after hearing that the reason for both was time issues/contractual obligations (both were involved in the much-anticipated Sunshine when this got off the ground). So they brought in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto) to both co-write and direct. I was still a touch leery walking into the theater, but the end result is that the movie was not as good as I'd hoped-- but a great deal better than I expected.

We start off with a group of survivors holed up in a cottage at the beginning of the outbreak (if you saw the original, the opening scene happens, presumably, while Cillian Murphy's character is still in a coma). Two of the people stuck there are Alice (Catherine McCormack) and Don (Robert Carlyle). During dinner one night, there's a pounding on the door, and they admit a young boy (Gary Robert Kelly's favorite actor, Beans El-Balawi). Unfortunately, the infected are hot on his tail, and you can guess the rest. Don escapes. 28 weeks later, the repatriation of Britain begins, and Don's kids Andy (the similarly wonderfully-named Mackintosh Muggleton in his first screen role) and Tammy (V for Vendetta's Imogen Poots) are reunited with him. But, as you know if you've seen thirty seconds of any trailer to the film, maybe they were a bit hasty in bringing people back to the island...

The good news is that Boyle did, in fact, act as second unit director, and directed a few scenes. The bad news, which isn't really so bad, is that it's pretty obvious which scenes they are. While the behind-the-scenes stuff they've been showing on TV singles out Boyle's direction of the opening scene, there are a few others scattered throughout as well. Boyle's adrenaline-rush jump cuts show up now and again, and there's an almost eerie similarity to the first film in those scenes. This is helped along by the fact that the producers used, for all intents and purposes, the same soundtrack John Murphy came up with for the first film, but without the silly happy synthesizer stuff that popped up now and again in that one. (And no uncredited Godspeed You Black Emperor! tracks this time round, either.) That said, Fresnadillo is a strong director in his own right, and he holds his own here. The story is less epic than the first one, with the focus squarely on Don and his kids, along with two army officers who try to help them escape the new outbreak of contagion. This could have easily become a weakness, with such a simple storyline, but Fresnadillo turns it into a strength. There are a lot of places where he could have branched out, and frankly I'd have liked to see some of them, but he kept focus throughout. He also didn't make the usual sequel mistake of showing the monsters too much, sticking to Boyle's original jump-cut plan when the infected get screen time (which is surprisingly little, actually); you get flashes, but with one ugly exception towards the end of the movie, we never get the whole "let's unveil the monster in all its glory" wankery so common in horror films with big effects budgets. (And even in the exception, he keeps it to a minimum and still uses the close-ups that make the infected so scary in the first place.) There were a few times I wished Garland had written the script, but Fresnadillo and his compatriots (who include the BAFTA-nominated Rowan Joffe) did well, for the most part.

The one truly weak point in the movie is that it's all set up very conveniently. You have a basic idea of what's coming from the first big plot twist (or, if you're more observant than I am, about ten minutes into the movie). That said, Fresnadillo still has a trick or two up his sleeve for the big payoff at the end of the movie, and oh, the payoff is so very, very worth it. Everything's set up nicely, and then Fresnadillo and co. sweep everything we think we know off the table.

Now, I know there are a few people who aren't going to like the sequel no matter what because it's a sequel, but in general, if you liked the first one, I think you'll get a kick out of this one, as well. Certainly worth paying matinée price for, even if your matinée pricing just skyrocketed like ours did. ****

When I heard that this was coming out, I was not expecting much. The original is arguably THE zombie classic (discounting the hysterical "Shaun of the Dead") of the last decade, but the sequel involved almost none of the original minds that brought us the stark terror of "28 Days Later", which combined the threats of cataclysmic disease and it's deadly effects on the mind which caused those infected by what became known as the "Rage Virus" to viciously and relentlessly attack the uninfected, either killing the victim or spreading the disease. A sequel had potential of course, but it seemed like it would be a by-the-books popcorn affair. Boy, was I wrong.

People complained that the first film started too slowly and was boring for the first twenty minutes; I disagree, but that issue has been addressed nonetheless. The opening sequence flashes back to another group of survivors during the original outbreak. Their fate is one you won't forget; it is startling, chaotic, terrifying, dramatic, hopeless, and heartbreaking, all within one fairly short chain of events. That's when I knew this one was going to be everything I wished it would be and it never let me down. This film is epic and personal, gruesome yet tearful, and manages to give you everything you want, even when you had no clue that you wanted it.

The evolution of the Rage Virus is a fascinating one in that it manages to outlive the death of all of the infected (from starvation) by exploiting a rare gene that allows some people to be carriers of the virus without succumbing to it's effects. The result: even kissing your wife hello could be the catalyst for a new, deadly outbreak. The story kicks in 28 weeks after the infection dies and the US military is overseeing the repopulation of London; or a district of London to be precise. Every possible step is taken to ensure that the horror that was the infection that wiped Great Britain's population clean off the earth is not repeated. Naturally, the virus finds a way. As the crushing mass of humanity flees from the compromised quarantine and the murderous zombies, there is an amazing scene where the rooftop snipers are frantically trying to distinguish the civilians from the infected as they run down a bottlenecked street. The chaos and hopelessness of the situation are palpable as the camera shows us through a soldier's scope just what he is up against in dramatic fashion. The way that these situations of large-scale human terror are turned into personal struggles is what makes this movie a stone cold classic in my mind where it otherwise would have been just another great horror film.

The cinematography impresses as well. There are plenty more of those iconic shots of deserted London that bring back memories of the first film and make me wish I lived there so I could appreciate them more. Another nice touch. And the final shot of the film, while not unexpected, is one that will chill you to the bone and thrill you at the same time.

I've spent significant time trying to think of a horror sequel that surpassed the original so superbly and I honestly can't think of one. The closest would be the original "Dawn of the Dead", but I still prefer "Night of the Living Dead" to "Dawn" so "28 Weeks Later" takes it. This is an absolute take-no-prisoners, hard "R", work of terror that must be viewed by all professing to be horror fans.

There's always that extra obstacle to conquer when making sequels, for the lovers of the first movie the second needs a reason to exist, it has to be real, strong and carry the story further than one could have imagined. I really enjoyed "28 Days Later" because I got to see it in a half empty theater with a friend, and it felt so real and brutal that I walked out with my knees shaking. Then I saw this movie at home and while it still made me cringe I don't think that it was the lack of super sized screen that made the movie feel smaller than the first, somehow as good as it was there were flaws to it that made it hard for me to give it more stars.

Overall I'm glad I saw it, it was scary, bloody, gross, there was lots of close run ins and plenty of super hungry, super fast infected zombies but the little things that allowed the outbreak spread again made me shake my head in disbelief. At one point I was laughing (the scene in the dark at the stadium escalator) because it was so ridiculous and then I was flabbergasted at the bad decisions, like the new kids who arrived at the cleaned now London sneaked out to get something from their old home even thought it was forbidden to leave, they simply took this dramatic stance against everyone's safety as they opened the portals to hell for everyone else. I was surprised to see who was the main carrier of the virus and then who spread it to everyone else, I know the zombies were fast but the so called safe army guarded compound was like kindergarten during an Easter egg hunt, the infected ravaged anyone they pleased and it seemed that even all those weapons and precautions didn't do much to stop the spread.

The movie looked good, I liked the eerie and forlorn mood and it was a good chunk of horror watching on a rainy Sunday but the little bits of stupidity that well, allowed for the sequel to exist were little too much. At the end it left me feeling depressed, so I guess goal accomplished! Not bad but not the greatest although worth the watch for horror fans. I am guessing that if there is another entry it will be called 28 months later, now that would be interesting to see...


- Kasia S.

Those who come to 28 WEEKS LATER from its original 28 DAYS know the general plot and themes. England has been overrun with crazed zombies who have been infected with the Rage Virus. The original was a smash hit partly because of its suspenseful direction and partly because of some pretty effective scenes of gore. In this sequel, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has added some troubling subtexts of political allegory, with an occupying U. S. Army clearly representing the current force in Iraq. Some reviewers have noted what they think is a plotless gorefest. Gore there is in plenty but it is not for that which gives the movie its unforgettable tang. Fresnadillo has succeeded in the rarest of all horror director goals--to place the audience right there in harm's way. The film opens with a married couple (Robert Carlyle and Catherine McCormack) seeking refuge from the zombies in a farmhouse. When the zombies break in, he panics and runs, leaving his wife to fall into their clutches. At this point, comparisons to other walking dead films become inevitable. George Romero in the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD chose to portray his zombies as stiff-legged reanimated ghouls who lumber slowly after their victims. Here the zombies are mercurial insane killers, not dead but akin to the true criminally insane who are human in all areas except in their brain dead desire to bite the living to infect them.

As the husband escapes to find his children alive (Imogen Poots and McKintosh Muggles) in a rebuilding London, he discovers to his shame that his wife has survived only to unintentionally infect him. What follows is a nightmarish set of fragmented holocausts in which he spreads the infection to thousands of others in just a few hours. His infection is particularly graphic. We can see how in less than a minute the light of humanity vanishes from his eyes to be replaced by a blackness of mindless rage that gives the virus its name. Though he is patient zero in the re-infection of London, he does not merge into the tsunami of the similarly infected. Like Coleridge's Albatross he continues to reappear at inopportune moments to torment his disbelieving children that their father has vanished to be replaced by a relentless doppleganger whose very ferocity to infect them becomes the driving symbol of the film.

I did have a problem with the point of view that Fresnadillo chose to take whenever the zombies appear on stage. At that point, he accelerated the frenetic pace of the film so that all the zombies began to run at top speed to the point that their faces began to merge into each other in a blur. This proved to a be predictable distraction. Fortunately however, Fresnadillo had the sense to slow down his camera whenever the father made his frequent appearances. Whenever I see a zombie film, I always wonder how the zombies act when they are not munching on victims. Why do they not attack each other? Do they rely on sight and smell to distinguish themselves from humanity? When Fresnadillo chooses to accelerate the pacing of the film, perhaps he tries to circumvent this potential philosophical distraction by forcing the audience to focus on the humans as the zombies see them rather than on how the zombies see each other.

The film has a number of individual moments of power, not all of which deal with zombie violence on humans. By midfilm, the focus shifts to human violence on uninfected humans as soldiers are given a morally troubling order to shoot everyone running out of a building when only a much smaller number of them are Ragers. By the time we get to the closing reel, we can see that the Ragers have no choice to kill. A virus drives them on. But uninfected humans are ragers in their own fashion as well. They kill out of fear, hatred, or in response to sanctioned orders. It is this non stop series of moral subtexts that renders 28 WEEKS LATER as a film that one will want to revisit, perhaps even after less than 28 weeks.

I'm always weary of horror sequels...they usually just don't cut the mustard (Loved "The Ring" but its sequel was miserably bad!). This sequel lives up to its entertaining predecessor and may actually be better than the first!

The story picks up six months after the virus ravaged London, with a couple (played by Catherine McCormack and the talented Robert Carlyle) who are living with a group of survivors in a boarded up home. Soon, however, their quiet hideaway is attacked by a group of blood thirsty "ragers" and Carlyle's character shows his true cowardly nature, leaving behind his wife to be killed and saving himself, above all others.

When we next see (Carlyle) he is being reunited with his children in an area sanctioned off by the US government and Nato. With snipers set up to watch the safe zone and giving complete medical exams to clear the returning citizens, the project looks to be a successful attempt to eradicate the virus infected zombies and the virus itself. But when the couple's two children escape the safe zone, return to their old home and find their mother, still very much alive, the virus returns. Though the mother doesn't exhibit the signs of the zombies, she carries the disease and can still transfer it, setting a course for the return of the blood spewing zombies. However, the mother, because she is genetically immune to the symptoms (and possibly her children as well) is an important key in fighting the virus and the chance of truely stopping it from spreading.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo does a good job of following the lead of the first director but upping the action a bit for the second go around. Robert Carlyle does a great job as a very flawed man who will do anything to survive, including turning his back on his own family. This is a great horror movie, a good summer action movie and definitely worth seeing! Highly recommended!

For some reason, the way the infected chase after their "prey" in this movie is eerily realistic. They run upright, "eagerly," and with all their might. They turn the corner to reveal their numbers, a massive crowd of bloodthirsty, demonic-looking infected beings, with no intention other than to rip open their victims. This movie, somehow, captures suspenseful horror in a way that I've never seen. The creepy, gothic sounds from the band Muse add to the darkness of this film. It's just so odd the morbidity... I can't pinpoint exactly what makes this movie so morbid (although, that's the plan of the director). The military portrayals are top-notch realistic, comparable to the movie "Children of Men." I hate movies with loads of gore and blood, but the mere artistic value of it makes it one of my favorite movies. I mean, if something like this were to really happen in reality, watching this movie shows us exactly what it would be like, truthfully. It has a sort of "Resident Evil" vibe to it, while also adding a lesson in why we shouldn't tamper with biogenetics too much.

28 Days Later was one of those pre-hyped horror films that generated a lot of buzz before its release. I saw the film in the theaters during that hype, liked the film, but I think the hype machine left me with expectations that were extremely high. I appreciated the film much more after I bought it on DVD. The first film is a clever and creepy "zombie" film that also touches on the possibility of how we would survive if an entire city was wiped out by some kind of infection.

28 Weeks Later was a differenct story for me. I went in with low expectations thinking I would experience a quick cash in sequel but to my surprise this film was made with a great deal of integrity and respect for the original. It follows that whole theory that the second time around everything is a bit bigger and louder, but it offers us this without compromising the story. 28 Weeks Later is a welcomed chapter in the frightening look of what would happen if we lost control during an outbreak of a violent infection. Needless to say, from a horror film standpoint, this is the best one to come out in awhile.

28 Weeks Later is a direct sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, although none of the characters from the first film have returned. 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. Don (Robert Carlyle) and Alice (Catherine McCormack) have two children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton). The kids are in Spain during the outbreak, while Don and Alice are in hiding. When their hideout is discovered by a group of infected, the cowardly Don runs off, assuming that Alice has been killed. 28 weeks later, the kids come home, but it isn't long before it becomes apparent the crisis isn't over. Members of the U.S. 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.

This film had me hooked from the start. The opening scene did what no horror film has done in recent memory: it made me jump out of my seat. That first initial break in during the first 10 minutes was exceptionally well done and it really threw me head first into the story. Intense is probably the best way to describe this scene and the film is filled with many intense moments that should entertain the viewer.

Despite all the entertainment provided by the action, the films smaller moments probably are the highlights. The first film did a great job of creating the isolation and decaying nature of London after the infection outbreak. This atmosphere is wonderfully re-created here with several overhead helicopter shots of an empty London, looking incredibly creepy. Both films tapped into my fear of just being alone in a potential situation like this. The idea of this is no different from being one of few survivors if we had a nuclear fall out. I also dug the idea of repopulating Britain but under strict guidelines to ensure that the infected could not break out again. It made me think of what could happen we had to be in a similar situation. The idea of being under such a lockdown is even more terrifying than the infected that are represented in this film.

The acting is top notch from all involved. If I have one complaint is that I cared more about the characters in the first film but since the cast has been expanded a bit this time around, I can see why character development couldn't be properly explored. Actors like Robert Carlyle and Harold Parrineau for instance are criminally underused and we aren't given much insight into their personalities. They do a decent job, especially Carlyle but they aren't given enough to do. The children played by Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton are truly the only characters who garner our sympathy and they do a damn good job of it too. Not merely because they're children but because they do a great job of making their characters believeable and easy to relate to given the situaton. Jason Renner and Rose Byrne also provide adequate support with Byrne creating a female character that is strong and believable.

I want to talk a bit about the shakey cam because in most reviews I read, even those that liked it, many people have complained about the shakey cam. I'm not a fan of this device. I think quick edits take away from the action taking place on screen and it also makes it extremely hard to tell what's going on. The action scenes in Batman Begins are an example of this. I love that film but my only complaint was that the hand to hand combat scenes were so hard to get into because the quick edits made it difficult to tell what was going on. To my surprise, the shakey cam in this film, added to the visceral experience of the film. There are many moments where it is hard to tell what is going on when the infected strike but the screams of horror and the snarls of the infected was all I needed to hear in order to truly feel the horror of the experience. The quick edits actually made many of the scenes much more intense. The best example of this is during the code red scene when everyone is looked down and one of the infected breaks in and begain to infect everyone. The scene is mostly dark but the intensity of how quick it was taking place, made the scene all the more frightening. The slower action scenes work as well (especially the various sniper scenes towards the end and a very frightening night vision scene that had my theater shrieking a bit) but I did appreciate the quick cuts this time around. You win this round shakey cam!

I think when the summer movie season is over 28 Weeks Later will be remembered as one of the pleasant surprises of the season. I'm not sure how well it will do financially compared to the original film since the horror genre has been milked to death between 2006 and 2007. If the film doesn't register in theaters, I think it will definitely find a great home on DVD. This is a welcomed companion piece to 28 Days Later and it's a truly frightening experience that did not disappoint in the slightest. Definitely recommended.28 Weeks Later (Widescreen Edition)

I will not forgive them for what they did to the mother. Nuff said. Don't want to make this a spoiler zone. But I don't forgive them. It screwed up the story and made it go downhill fast.

That said: This started out so well.

The moment where Robert Carlyle's character (and I love this actor, on reason I rented the flick, the other being I enjoyed the first by Boyle) has to make his dread choice, and then he's running, running, running to the dock with those crazed "zombies" is really horrifying. I felt that buzz of suspense. Sure, I knew he had to survive to make the film continue, but it was directed in such a way that it worked. Scary!

The futuristic concept of the isolated zone, military-controlled, the soldiers getting a bit lax, the survivors waiting for life to normalize, etc, all that felt nicely post-apocalyptic. I had, however, a hard time buying that anyone would really want to come back from a safe US to a corpse-riddled, ravaged London. Come on. Would you? Naw. I'm thinking I'd ask for asylum. It strained credulity.

The whole reunion, angst, the dread of when the next virus surge would come, that was all well-done. But once the infection strikes again, it pretty much mostly goes to a place that bored me. Bloody and gory and brutal, but boring. And I had a very hard time sympathizing with the kids. When one stops caring if the children in a story live or die--that's problematic. I stopped caring. And yet, their situation was so awful, I should have cared. The script did not MAKE me care if they got eaten by ragies.

The ending, however, had a glorious final bit of visual action. It sets this up for yet a third film in this storyline, too. But I doubt I'll be excited to watch it if it's going to do the same downhill slide as this one did in the second part. Suggestion: Make me care that the people survive, the way I did in the first film. I gotta want the leads to make it, or why watch? Flesh-eating isn't that rivetting.

Mir

What a disgrace to the original this was.

The short form: A wonderful, moody movie, zombie-like foes who were relentless and brutal, but still (relatively) believable with weaknesses turns out a sequel with uber-monsters, unbelievable coincidences, and overkill that never actually kills any of their targets.

Most people classify these as zombie films because of the basic similarity ... near-human critters with an insatiable need to destroy us, born of malice, food, what-have-you. It doesn't necessarily matter where they come from, how or why they do what they do, fast or slow ... what matters, what makes movies like this is the all-too-human reactions to these impossible circumstances. How we act, how we react. It was the secret to the success of Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Living Dead, even some of the Return of the Living Dead series. It's the realism of the human response.

This is the failure of 28 Weeks Later. Gone is the Human response that was so authentic and believable. Welcome to gross caricature and incredible coincidence. Welcome to unabashed popcorn-guzzling movie reality where the American Military assists survivors in repopulating a so-called "safe zone" in the middle of a possible viral zone with checkpoints based more on cameras than actual guards.

Pay no attention to the fact that the janitor / superintendant not only has full access to all the residential zones (which he abuses by setting off the zone-wide alarm right near the start), but also all restricted military biohazard quarantine zones as well.

Ignore the ease with which two children escape from the safe zone, steal a corpse's motorcycle keys and return to their home, despite the possible horror and infection that this should logically bring.

Pretend that somehow, a single survivor was able to evade previously-shown certain death and survive for (counts the weeks) 8 months (7 months + 28 days, approximately), maybe less, and move the presumably incredible distance from rural Britain to Main Street Central, London, despite the fact that later in the film, the Infected clearly have no reason to NOT attack this survivor.

Imagine that somehow, one of the monsters, despite being infected by "Rage" is able to utilize previously-unknown ninja-like stealth and cruel, sadistic patience rather that the blind, unthinking blunt rage from which the virus gets its name, and that this one monster gains superhuman resistance, extranormal senses and nearly infallible tracking ability.

Tell yourself that it is somehow possible that the best helicopter pilot on the planet is assigned security and is able to destroy legions of zombies by flying straight at them, in effect being more effective at killing a crowd of zombies then neighborhood-wide firebombing, nigh-instantaneously-fatal nerve gas (bearing in mind that these are just crazy people, more or less), and teams of highly trained snipers and soldiers in Biohazard (NBC) gear with flamethrowers and (assumedly) the support and equipment that would be necessary to back them.

And, if you're still willing to spend time or money watching this film, consider that the only unpredictability in this film comes how different the "uberzombie" is from the rest of the zombies. This film does not surprise with suspense so much as it bludgeons you with shock, and even then, it seems more gratuitous rather than done for any sort of reasonable plot / story / artistic decision, sort of a "let's pile on the gore to really scare people!"

Terribly disappointing, from its unrealistic human response to incredible plot holes and coincidences and an ending that tells the viewer, "congratulations, what you just paid for was nothing more than an hour-plus ad for a sequel we hope to con you into watching," this movie is can generously be noted as "sub-par," and far worse if you're any fan of the original 28 Days Later.

28 Weeks Later / B000TJBN80

*Spoilers*

The tricky thing about sequels is that not only do they have to be good movies in their own right, but they also must weather the inevitable comparisons to the movie that it follows. And, fundamentally, this is the biggest problem with "28 Weeks Later". Following, as it does, from 28 Days Later, but with seemingly everyone who was involved with "28 Days" completely replaced, it was inevitable that the resulting sequel would have a largely different tone than the first movie. Whether or not this change is a bad thing will depend on the viewer's expectations.

"28 Weeks" starts well enough - a group of survivors are holed up tight in a country house, far away from the cities and the rage virus. It's nice to see variety in a zombie movie, and the ensuing demonstration that frightening situations needn't be restricted to the dead of midnight is welcome. Viewers may reasonably question, however, why the otherwise apparently fairly prudent occupants of the house didn't take a few more steps to ensure their safety in this new, uncertain world - such as emigrating permanently to the second story, which seems to be more than roomy enough (shaky camera notwithstanding) and which - once isolated from the downstairs - would seem to be a permanent safe-haven from the rage victims, given that they aren't lucid enough to scale walls or build ladders.

While this may seem like a small point, I feel it neatly underlines the changed between "Days" and "Weeks". The survivors in "Days" were modern 'real' people - in other words, they'd seen a zombie movie or three (as have we all) and subsequently they knew how to protect themselves. Flats barred with impenetrable walls of shopping carts, iron doors, and suits of makeshift armor were the refuge of the besieged in the city. The army out in the country employed round-the-clock shifts, mine fields, and a very prudent once-bit-then-shot policy that prevented serious disaster when one of their own was infected. The point behind all this is that "Days" was not a zombie movie in the traditional sense, but rather a movie about human nature under stressful, end-of-the-world conditions. Realistically, you could have replaced all the zombies with, say, nuclear fallout and you still would have had the same haunting themes in "Days" - namely, where our humanity begins and ends in a struggle for survival.

"Weeks", on the other hand, is pretty much a straight-up zombie movie, and in order to facilitate that, the humans have to be a lot less competent than they were in "Days". So we have desperate people failing to fall back to a secure upper story and a military with such poor security measures that it seems almost blind luck that they haven't been overrun yet. (Which isn't to say that "Weeks" doesn't attempt a point at military ethics, but the civilians-are-expendable message is so anvilicious compared to "Days" that it will likely annoy more than thoughtfully provoke.)

Once you accept "Weeks" as a straight-up zombie movie, it's not a bad one. There's a living MacGuffin that has to be tracked down, protected, and gotten to safety once the inevitable disaster overruns the safe haven. The biggest problem here, though, is that the build-up to the disaster is long and tedious, with quite a bit of dialogue that sounds like it was meant to be deep and meaningful, but just comes off as the filler dialogue we've all heard before. And once the dying starts, the characters die off so predictably that they might as well all be wearing numbered jerseys.

I guess you could say that I really loved "28 Days" because I went into the movie expecting a good, solid zombie flick, and I came out mentally shaken by the moral subtext and end-of-the-world break down of social relationships. But the downside to that meant that I went into "28 Weeks" expecting to be further mentally toyed with and was ultimately let down when the movie turned out to 'merely' be a decent, if predictable zombie flick. There's enough here to be interesting, mostly centering around the infected Typhoid Mary of the plot, but ultimately all that gets tossed down the drain in favor of running around in the dark getting eaten. And while there's nothing wrong with that, per se, "28 Weeks" doesn't end up standing out significantly from the hordes of similar movies on the market, in my opinion.

~ Ana Mardoll