Movie Review: 28 Weeks Later

This is a sequel to the movie 28 Days Later. I missed that one, but if it was anything like this one, it's definitely just as well. I vaguely remember seeing a preview of 28 Weeks Later and thinking that the plot sounded interesting and suspenseful. I will let this be a lesson to me to be sure to read movie reviews online before agreeing to see anything, ever.

It's not that the reviews were bad. Indeed, most of the critics seemed to like the movie a whole lot better than I did. It's just that reading the reviews would have given me enough information to realize that I should avoid this movie at all costs.

Suspenseful, yes. Alarmingly so. Good? Most definitely not. The writers (Eugene Lopez-Lavigne, Jesus Olmo, Rowan Joffe, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo; Fresnadillo was also the director) and producers (Alex Garland and Danny Boyle, executive producers) are some seriously disturbed individuals.

Anyway, if I'd read the reviews, I would have realized that it's a horror movie. While I may enjoy movies or books categorized as suspense, thriller, etc., I HATE horror movies. I can't stand gore and cruelty just for the sake of it. I haven't seen anything this bloody since Interview with the Vampire, and I didn't like that one either, although at least that one had some depth to it. 28 Weeks Later was so bloody that I actually became nauseous and had to leave the theater for a little bit, and I am not the sort of person that freaks out at the sight of a little bit of blood. Gallons and gallons is something else.

At the beginning of this movie, a couple is hiding out with a few other people, trying to stay away from those infected with the rage virus, who will surely kill them if they find them. Their hideout is discovered, and the man, Don, (Robert Carlyle) manages to run away while his wife, Alice (Catherine McCormack) is screaming at him from the window for help. I'm not sure if he could have really helped her or not, given the viciousness and number of the infected. Still, it was pretty upsetting to see him running away while she is begging for help.

Anyway, he manages to escape himself and assumes she is dead. Some weeks later, he is reunited with their two children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), who had thankfully been safe elsewhere at the time. The rage virus is declared wiped out, and the US military is helping to rebuild and repopulate London. "Your safety is in the hands of the US military," the refugees are told. "Give me something to shoot!" one military officer shouts later. As political commentary attempting to draw parallels between this and the Iraq fiasco (assuming that is in fact what it's supposed to be), it's lame. The unpopular Iraq war is way too easy a target for comments like this to be considered clever.

Don tells his children that their mother is dead, though he omits the fact that he ran away. But Tammy and Andy sneak out of the safe place they are staying with their father and run away, back to their old house. Improbably, they manage to make it there without being caught by the military. There they discover their mother still alive. They all get back into the containment zone, where medical testing reveals that while showing no symptoms, their mother is a carrier of the virus.

A series of highly improbable events causes the virus to break out again, leading to more gratuitous gore, violence, and cruelty. The camera jumps around a lot during many of the gory scenes, leaving the viewer confused, though thoroughly disgusted. The last hour or so is a chase scene, where the kids and the adults trying to help them have not only the rage-infected citizens to deal with, but also the US military, which has declared a "code red" and started shooting everyone. Again, as political allegory, it's lame. There actually seemed to be little point at all to this movie. There's no character development, so while the viewer desperately wants the violence to stop, it's not because they've gotten a chance to get to know or care about the characters. It doesn't make any sort of statement that I could decipher. And anyone expecting a happy ending will be sorely disappointed.