Movie Review - 28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later (3 of 5): This movie is the sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, but hopefully you knew that since the title of the film is so cleverly thought up. In this movie, we follow the citizens of London as they start to move back into their city after the rage virus pandemic is brought under control. However, when one woman turns up as a carrier of the virus, all hell breaks loose.

I liked this movie. It is a decent follow up to its predecessor, but ultimately not as good. Largely, this is due to my preference of the first movie’s more personal story and almost claustrophobic feel. You could really relate to the characters of the first film and ask yourself what you would do in their situations. Plus, the first movie was a nice new spin on the “zombie flick” which made it feel fresh and new.

In 28 Weeks Later, the film has many more characters and thus feels far less personal. The sequel mostly forgoes a character driven story for more action and more blood. That’s not to say there aren’t some good character moments in this film. The first ten minutes of the movie are frantic and provide one heck of a “holy shit” moment of decision that haunts the characters for the rest of the movie.

28 Weeks Later is a lot bloodier, more violent, and action oriented than the first. I didn’t mind this, but I did find the way they shot the action to be really annoying. The camera is in constant motion and during action/scary scenes it gets really hard to follow what is going on. The other thing that kind of annoyed me about 28 Weeks Later is that there are some ridiculous decisions made by the Army in this movie – stuff that (I hope) would never happen in the real world.

I don’t hold many faults to this film though. It is decent sequel and provides some scary entertainment. Also, this movie is depressing as hell, which is good. Survival horror movies should wear you out and make you feel hopeless by the end. 28 Weeks Later succeeds in doing that.

PS – I wanted to also share a great bit of irony that I noted in my movie experience. Before the movie, I was forced to sit through a five minute long propaganda commercial about why the US National Guard is so great and how much the Guard protects us. Then, I watched the movie and noticed how much the US Army screws up in its protection of London’s citizens (to the point of actually ordering the murder of ALL of the city’s inhabitants!). When the irony of the US National Guard commercial playing before this film about the US Army slaughtering a city’s civilians hit me, I had to laugh.