28 Weeks Later

2007 • Dir: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo • St: Robert Carlye, Rose Byrne

Premise: The sequel to 28 Days Later, London has been mostly cleared of the infected by the Americans, and Londoners are slowly being returned to the city, as a second outbreak occurs.

Analysis: With the success of 28 Days Later, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a sequel. 28 Weeks continues the use of the rapid jump-cuts of the first film, and also the very moody and haunting music of 28 Days.

I will be perhaps briefer with this review than I was with 28 Days. This is largely because, while 28 Weeks is entertaining, the tone of the film is much more frenetic, feeling like it does as one long chase.

In essence, Don (Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) are holed up with some other survivors in a farmhouse. Their kids have been sent away in one of the big evacuations that had been carried out before the UK became quarantined. In the space of about 3 minutes, one of the infected break into the farmhouse, and everyone dies. This is an excellent start to the film to attempt to establish it's credentials as a worthy sequel. Don tries to help the others and save his wife, but in a wrenching moment chooses survival over love, and makes good an escape.

Later, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and her little brother Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) are entering London, along with a large number of other evacuees, to stay in a safe area on the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf. This was ostensibly done to contrast the 'old' London of 28 Days, with the 'new' London of 28 Weeks. They are reunited with their father, Don and processed by an American military scientist Scarlet (Byrne), who is annoyed because no screening process had been approved yet for children.

Tammy and Andy ask how their mum died, and Don lies to them, ostensibly to mask his guilt and spare their feelings. Don tells them they can't go back to their old house. Naturally, movie kids being movie kids, they do the exact opposite and sneak out the next day. At this point, it's also worth mentioning the paranoia the film evokes by having everything constantly under surveillance. We are introduced to scenes often by seeing them on a security camera first, and one of the snipers who protect the area, the American Doyle (Jeremy Renner) routinely scans the area through his rifle's scope.

When the kids escape, they are spotted almost immediately after they've left the safe zone. After a sobering introduction to what post-infection London really looks like, they make their way back to their old home. Inside, they find the film's bombshell - their mother, infected but not affected by the rage virus. The army swoops in and the film's rollercoaster ride toward sweeping oblivion begins.

Scarlet is fascinated by Alice's immunity and thinks she could find a cure from Alice's blood. The disinterested Gen Stone (Idris Elba) wants none of it, and orders Alice to be killed. After a resentful reunion with his kids, Don has to face his shame and admit he left his wife to die. He sneaks in to see her, and one kiss starts an apocalypse that will destroy the Isle of Dogs. Don becomes infected, and the second aberration of infected behaviour appears - Don seems to retain some memories and actively hunts down his kids.

From here on out 28 Weeks is a non-stop chain of massacres, gore, explosions, and brutal but necessary military crackdowns. Unable to pull the trigger on Andy, Doyle teams up with Scarlet and the kids to escape London with his chopper pilot friend Flynn (Harold Perrineau). I found this half of the film entertaining, but to be honest also a bit ordinary. 28 Days engaged you with drastic shifts in mood and tone, while the latter half of 28 Weeks is like Michael Bay Brundle-Flyed with Renny Harlin.

I will make one exception for the helicopter lawnmower-style kill of a horde of infected. That was just so implausibly crazy, it made me laugh.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

As with many survival horror style films, we get a steady attrition of characters, losing Doyle to fire, Scarlet to Rage-Don, and finally Rage-Don to Tammy. Finally only Tammy and an infected Andy make it to Flynn's chopper, and escape, flying past Dover, over the channel to France. At the end, we are left with a shot of Flynn's abandoned chopper and a mob of infected running toward the Eiffel Tower (I guess they wanted to be the first in line when the ticket box opened, or at least see it before Destro and Cobra melted it with nanites).

END SPOILER

28 Weeks Later is not a bad film by any means. It is quite entertaining, but it's also a little flabby, and the headlong run into a pointless ending does let the film down. While it felt like 28 Days and sounded like 28 Days and looked like 28 Days, the double whammy of infection immunity and retained memory during infection did little to improve the film and only really bogged it down with elements that ultimately led nowhere. Still, watch it for the f@#king awesome helicopter scene.

3 out of 5 Stars