28 Weeks Later
28 Weeks Later
Score: 7/10
28 Days Later is one of my favorite scary movies. I bought it the day it came out on dvd, and recommended it to all my friends when they asked what a good scary movie was. So, it makes since that I went into this movie slightly mad that it even existed in the first place, and ready to tear it apart. Surprisingly enough, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
The plot is heavy on the Iraq metaphors, with America going into London to help with the quarantine and ending up destroying everyone, both infected and perfectly healthy, in a final attempt to stop the spread of the virus. They could have blown this aspect of the story way out of proportion and made it a complete “message” movie against America’s invasion of Iraq. I’ve thought about it for a while before writing this review, and I think the final result is a movie that subtlely addresses irrational killing in a time when control has been lost and order needs to be obtained.
All political messages aside, the movie did keep a good balance of blockbuster moments with the minimalist moments that made the first movie so great. I was fully prepared for this movie to be ruined thanks to a brand new budget that didn’t exist for the first film. The first movie was so well liked because it focused more on the main characters and their lack of knowledge about what the military was doing or where the zombies were. This was mainly because they simply couldn’t afford hundreds of extras or army vehicles galore, so they just went with what they had. The sequel uses it’s new muscle throughout the movie, but keeps true to the original and features less tanks and explosions, and more creepy scenes of the main characters stuck in dark alleys while hearing the screams of the zombies, but not knowing where they are.
The best part of the movie could be its simplist, but the scene where we are forced to watch through a night vision scope for a good five minutes while she tries to direct the two kids through the dark, dead bodies scattered everywhere, and the kids crying as they feel helpless in the pitch black is easily one of the scarier movie moments I’ve experienced in a while. There are a few select scenes similar to this that ended up winning me over and made it worth recommending if anything for one viewing in the theatre.
28 Weeks Later isn’t as good as the original, but it does a surprisingly good job at staying true to it in many ways. You can’t really fault the director for adding more bells and whistles since they had a bigger budget, and the acting is just as good as the first with all the actors pulling their weight since there really isn’t a lead actor. If you were looking for my recommendation, well, here it is. It’s one that will please scary movie fans and surprise others curious about the hype In the end I hope this movie accomplishes at least one thing, and that’s to get people curious enough to go watch the first movie, which is a must-see for anyone who has yet to experience it.
[...] 28 Weeks Later [...]