The Voice

Issue date: 5/24/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Fox Atomic London has yet to be decontaminated.

Pros

• Excellent Soundtrack
• Maintains startling, frantic style
• Outstanding make-up and graphic effects
  

Cons

• Not quite eerie as the prequel

A day without a zombie belching blood on your face is a day well spent. That’s the idea for the audacious British citizens who venture back to their country six months after the rage virus swept through the U.K. in 28 Days Later. But it’s not four weeks afterwards—it’s 28 Weeks Later, and most of them won’t be so lucky.

Britain has been quarantined but declared free of infection, and a small sector of the island has been cleared for human habitation. The Brits come trickling back in, and sure enough, in one of those “What are you doing?!” movie moments, a couple of stupid kids disobey orders and instigate a brand-spankin’-new epidemic. The outbreak wreaks havoc in minutes, instantly gaining the potential to cause even more destruction than it did during its initial wave.

28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland help out as executive producers of 28 Weeks Later, but script duties were passed to a trio of screenwriters, including new director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.

Aside from the credits, 28 Weeks Later mimics its prequel very accurately. Shaky, handheld camera work keeps the frenetic pulse of the film pounding and helps create the sense of panicked suspense that drove the first movie.

Just like its predecessor, the most memorable part of 28 Weeks Later is the soundtrack. John Murphy returns to compose an electric symphony that brilliantly sets, breaks, and keeps moods throughout the picture, organically illustrating peril, fear, sadness, relief and beauty simultaneously; it’s the ingredient that this movie just couldn’t do without.

Also like the first film, it observes the tendencies of people to turn on each other in a crisis—to become monsters in a less obvious but equally horrifying way.

Boyle taps Trainspotting and The Beach alum Robert Carlyle to lead the film as Don, first as a scared father and then as, well, something else. Carlyle skillfully plays both uncertain fear and unbridled rage and was the perfect choice for the role. Newcomers Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton (yes, those are real names) offer solid performances as Don’s children.

The U.S. Army helms the reconstruction effort, and the writers use the opportunity to take a not-so-subtle swipe at our military’s supposed “control it or kill it” attitude. The consolation is that not all Americans are portrayed in a negative light; the cracks at our foreign policy are balanced by the plot’s inclusion of two selfless Americans; a soldier (Jeremy Renner) and a compassionate doctor (Rose Byrne), who become integral parts of survival for the protagonists.

There are parts of this movie where both religious and atheist viewers will take the Lord’s name in vain. The brutality is that unbelievable. Mutilation, execution and murder abound and notably include death by helicopter and the return of the squirm-inducing eyeball-gouge.

Compared to the eerie freak show that was 28 Days Later, this film is just as scary to watch (there are quite a few “jump” moments) but overall less nightmarish. The images are still disturbing and in some ways even more shocking but not quite as ... haunting. Regardless, this movie works on its own; seeing the first episode is not necessary in order to understand and enjoy this second chapter.

28 Weeks Later is a bloodbath. It’s sick, it’s creepy, it’s startling and it’s awesome.

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