28 Weeks Later Review

I won't go into a summary of what this is about. I think anyone who has seen "28 Days Later" has an inkling of what it revolves around. OK, I will give you a little bit. It's about people who are infected with the "rage" virus. It turns them into violent, fast killing machines and is so contagious that pretty much all of Britain has been destroyed.

What did I like: Mucho more gore than the first. Always a big plus in my book. Very apocalyptic and not as "Hollywood" as I thought they would go. Great handheld shots and timing/shutter effects similar to the first flick so you can practically see every little drop of blood in crystal clarity. The beginnings of a great flawed hero with an outstanding chance for a journey to redemption.

What I did not like: Though the gore was greater, the actual scare factor was significantly less. The first one had some intense scary moments. Granted the first 5 minutes of the second installment were really nail baiting, afterwards it was one big chase scene and the intensity left me numb. Maybe it wasn't as scary because those great handheld shots, timing/shutter effects I mentioned earlier were so quick, chaotic, and distracting that I could barely comprehend what was going on. Artistically I know where the director was going with this. That was obvious. But it lessened the entertainment value because the shots are so quick that I sometimes had a hard time following exactly where I was in a scene. Since I couldn't see anything for a period of time longer than a nanosecond the scare factor fell dramatically.

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The potential character arc of Robert Carlyle's character would have made for a superb flawed hero but that was snatched away 1/4 of the way through the flick when he became infected with "rage." Some may think he got his 'just desserts' for his actions earlier in the film, but what a great emotional hurdle to overcome and be eventually redeemed by at the end of the movie - if only they had given that specific plot a chance. Instead, the plot switched gears to the much less interesting children of Carlyle's character as we see them bumbling like dunder heads through a devastated London. Totally one-sided characters who I kept hoping would come to some untimely end while the minor actors out-shined them by a mile.

Oh well. It wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't that good either. I don't have a scale, but if I used Ebert & Robert's thumbs up/down test, "28 Weeks Later" would have only a moderate thumbs up.