28 Weeks Later is the sequel to the amazing British film 28 Days Later that took the zombie film and turned it on it's head in a few different ways. The story is pretty straight forward, being devoid of any unnecessary twists or pointless character background. The virus that infected the English population in the first film has been eradicated and London is being slowly, and carefully, "re-populated". Unfortunately, the virus proves to be more difficult to wipe out than originally thought and it re-infects the population. The U.S. led NATO force occupying London tries to contain the spread, but eventually has to resort to "Code Red" and things get nasty really quick as a small group of people who managed to avoid being infected has to find a way out of London before the entire city is "cleansed".
This movie surpassed my low expectations on so many levels. What I expected to be a by-the-numbers action movie with ridiculous CGI effects and story lines involving hackneyed child characters was, in fact, one of the smartest films I've seen in ages. Extremely dark in nature, apocalyptic in a very literal sense and brutal in ways that are far too realistic, 28 Weeks Later is easily the finest horror film I've seen since The Descent. This is to say that there are scenes of violence and bloodshed that are both grotesque and frightening, but also truly heart wrenching. Too often horror films emphasize the brutality of death and violence and lose sight of the impact it has and how it affects people. The horror becomes nothing more than a cheap entertainment gag and an exercise in technological wizardry. 28 Weeks Later is certainly a special effects triumph and there are plenty of jolts and scares. However, it also maintains the ability to keep the viewer very aware that the point of a horror film is often to horrify rather than just scare. There are scenes where the violence is truly over the top and grotesque and the viewer is not disconnected from it they way one might be in, say, a low budg' slasher movie. There are very bad things happening on the screen and there's nothing fun about it.
The reviewer at Bloody Disgusting makes a great point that I want to reiterate. Part of the downfall of most Zombie movies (or horror movie in general) is that there are always "heroes" and "villains" among the humans. Dawn of the Dead had the macho security guards, Night of the Living Dead had the disruptive and paranoid guy in the basement, Day of the Dead had the overzealous and power hungry military guys as did 28 Days Later. The "non-infected" people in 28 Weeks Later are not one dimensional and take actions that are understandable no matter how the audience may feel about them. Again, it's the lack of disconnect from the film that makes this a truly horrifying movie. You are not given the chance to think "well, you had that coming because you did this or acted this way or are like this...." because if put into the same situation, you'd most likely do the same thing.
The military theme is an interesting one as well. An English film directed by a Spanish director, the movie could easily be seen as a statement on the current American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. While things probably won't get out of control the way they do in the film (uh, duh), you can see the parallels easily which, once again, makes scenes involving the "justification of extreme measures" all the more disturbing.
All that being said, this isn't a flawless movie. There are elements of the movie that are a little hard to swallow, but it's important to remind yourself that a) this is a movie about crazed cannibals and the nihilistic destruction of all humanity and b) the movie does, after all, strive to entertain. So some of the questions one might ask -why does that one particular zombie always manage to find the good guys - are easily answered with "because it makes the movie that much more scary".
Quick note - Yes, I know that the zombies are not actually "zombies" in the strict horror purist sense. So don't waste your time trying to explain that to me. I get it.
28 Weeks Later is a gruesome, remarkably gory and violent horror movie that is able to make a statement without being ham-handed about it. The acting is top notch, the story is simple and well done and the characters are multi-dimensional. It certainly made an impact on me and left me in what I call a "movie coma" where I sat thinking about it for a couple of hours afterwards. This movie is just awesome.
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