28 Weeks Later Movie Review

28 Weeks Later (2007)

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Written by: Rowan Joffe & Juan Carlos Fresnadillo & Enrique López Lavigne & Jesús Olmo (screenplay)
Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, Robert Carlyle, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Idris Elba, Imogen Poots
Rated: R
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Plot
Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again, but not everything goes according to plan.

Verdict
It's a solid horror movie, and it's biggest problem is living in the shadow of the first movie. It suffers from the usual features of a sequel: bigger cast, bigger plot, more action, and less engaging. This doesn't have much of a plot past run away. I like the way this ends and the implications of how there's no way to contain the virus, but I wish this had more story or focused more on the human element instead of action.
It depends.

Review
This is a standalone sequel to 28 Days Later set after the first movie. There have been rumors of another sequel but nothing has come to fruition yet. This keeps the music from the first movie and the frenetic camera shots heighten the energy.

The first scene encapsulates the entire movie. A group of survivors in a remote cabin let a boy in and it's the beginning of the end. He was running from the infected and they followed him. The group in this cabin has survived the apocalypse for over six months and a moment of kindness is their undoing.

The opening sequence is intense. Only Don (Robert Carlyle) survives the attack, but he did leave some people behind to save himself.

The U.S. military occupies London, eradicating the disease and establishing the city again. It's comical how easily that is upturned when two kids want to find a picture of their mom but instead find their mom. Alice (Catherine McCormack) is not infected but has all the tell-tale markers. The military debates on whether to keep her for study as Scarlet (Rose Byrne) recommends  or remove her. I bet you can guess their decision and what happens. We get to see just how quickly one person can spread the virus within an enclosed safe space. Everything this area had established crumbles in minutes.

Rose Byrne plays Scarlet

The reason I like the first movie more is that it was a post apocalypse movie with zombies. The characters questioned survival and how to live in this new world. The sequel is just a zombie movie. It's not bad, but it's not as cerebral as the first. This never pauses. Most of the movie is characters on the run. It also suffers from lapses in logic or trying to be too cute.

We see one infected person so often he seems smarter than the typical zombie, but I think he appears because the movie wants to put a specific face on zombies and make it relevant. Also the small group of survivors, Scarlet, Doyle (Jeremy Renner), and the kids get into a car to escape a toxic gas cloud meant to eliminate all the zombies. The whole reason you don't suffocate while inside a car is that it's not air tight. The car might mitigate the cloud, but it can't completely block it.

Jeremy Renner plays Doyle

This movie's main theme is how uncivil and cruel people can be when terrified. That's obscured by flame throwers and helicopter blades chopping up zombies. This doesn't have those human moments like the first. I wish these characters were put in situations where they have to reconcile their choices. It's always action oriented first. I do like the night vision sequence as it's so unsettling. We don't know what they'll encounter and the other people we see look odd through night vision with their eyes shining brightly.

This ends close to where we started with the first movie. People are just trying to survive. This virus can't be contained. There will always be a hole somewhere that allows the nightmare to begin again