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Once upon a time there was 28 Days Later, from the director of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary, Danny Boyle. I think Boyle lost his way with The Beach, especially by casting Di Caprio over MacGregor, but kudos for the cameos of Carlyle and the divine Tilda. Days was a second collaboration with Alex Garland, the source for The Beach, and was a brilliant cosy catastrophe, albeit with a heavy nod to Wyndham. Half the population of Britain become violent zombies, intent on killing the other half but generally infecting them. I blinked the week it was on general release, and it found a home on video.
Now we have a sequel by other hands, 28 Weeks Later, with Garland and Boyle no doubt as courtesy execs. To be fair, the film is in good hands. Don (Carlyle, closer to Gaz than Begbie), is holed up with his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) in a farmhouse in the countryside, when zombies attack. Carlyle makes a run for his life, and leaves wifey down the rabbit hole to die.
Over the next five months all the zombies starve to death, and the Americans secure the Isle of Dogs for the uninfected survivors, and selected people returning from overseas. These returners include Don and Alice's children who spend a night in Canary Wharf before being able to slip out of the highly guarded compound without being spotted - this is clearly no Guantanamo Bay. The kidlings make it to their old home safely where they find someone apparently immune to the virus - and who presumably can work a microwave.
Well, it has to go pear shaped, because we want our body count, and the officials are stupid enough not to think of the consequences of bringing a plague carrier within the safety cordon. Kerpow. Splat. Heads roll. The air force is sent for.
There are bits of this film which are pretty disturbing, and gruesome, and make you jump. The film goes into grainy shakey cam, if only to hide the joins, like Superman Returns did. No one is safe, especially from the trigger happy US soldiers let alone the zombies.
At the risk of spoilers, it is an awfully small world, and I'm impressed with the kids' ability to find their way to Hyde Park and Wembley via the Underground system. It's hard enough with trains, let alone in the dark. I'm also impressed by the sense of direction that the zombies have, even after banging their heads against plate glass. Repeatedly.
Blood is thicker than water, but not as thick as some of the plotting.
They bravely opt for the seventies ending, which is darker than first apparent but is generically right, and in the process leave the door open for 28 Months Later and firther sequels. 28 Aeons Later?
Now we have a sequel by other hands, 28 Weeks Later, with Garland and Boyle no doubt as courtesy execs. To be fair, the film is in good hands. Don (Carlyle, closer to Gaz than Begbie), is holed up with his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) in a farmhouse in the countryside, when zombies attack. Carlyle makes a run for his life, and leaves wifey down the rabbit hole to die.
Over the next five months all the zombies starve to death, and the Americans secure the Isle of Dogs for the uninfected survivors, and selected people returning from overseas. These returners include Don and Alice's children who spend a night in Canary Wharf before being able to slip out of the highly guarded compound without being spotted - this is clearly no Guantanamo Bay. The kidlings make it to their old home safely where they find someone apparently immune to the virus - and who presumably can work a microwave.
Well, it has to go pear shaped, because we want our body count, and the officials are stupid enough not to think of the consequences of bringing a plague carrier within the safety cordon. Kerpow. Splat. Heads roll. The air force is sent for.
There are bits of this film which are pretty disturbing, and gruesome, and make you jump. The film goes into grainy shakey cam, if only to hide the joins, like Superman Returns did. No one is safe, especially from the trigger happy US soldiers let alone the zombies.
At the risk of spoilers, it is an awfully small world, and I'm impressed with the kids' ability to find their way to Hyde Park and Wembley via the Underground system. It's hard enough with trains, let alone in the dark. I'm also impressed by the sense of direction that the zombies have, even after banging their heads against plate glass. Repeatedly.
Blood is thicker than water, but not as thick as some of the plotting.
They bravely opt for the seventies ending, which is darker than first apparent but is generically right, and in the process leave the door open for 28 Months Later and firther sequels. 28 Aeons Later?
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