#6 - 28 Weeks Later (2007)


(dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo)

About six months after the events of 28 Days Later, England is now free of the rage virus. The infected all died off months ago, and with the exception of a few survivors here and there, the country is essentially empty. A restoration team led by the US Army has come in to help rebuild London, getting everything ready for the citizens to return home. However, as you can probably guess, not everything goes according to plan...

This is a decently entertaining sequel that ups the ante in terms of action and gore, at the expense of the more thoughtful and human elements of the first film. There are a couple of memorable moments here, like the horde of zombies versus helicopter scene, even though I believe Planet Terror did it first. The performances range from fine (Jeremy Renner) to forgettable (Rose Byrne) to sort of annoying (the kids). Also Idris Elba is severely underused.

The weakest point of this film is the somewhat questionable plot, which is full of holes. Why is it that, despite their strict security and protocols, the military leaves a woman who is infected with the virus completely alone and unsupervised? They even allow her a visitor! She doesn't even seem to be contained at all, as the newly infected person is able to run right out the door and attack the soldiers in the hall. The behavior of the characters rarely makes sense either, but I guess that's not unusual for this type of film.

For an action-horror film that isn't afraid to get a bit bloody when it needs to, you could do worse, but overall this movie doesn't really do anything interesting that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Sort of half recommended - if you enjoy zombie movies, you'll probably like this (despite my complaints I did think it was worthwhile), but if semi-mindless action and gore aren't your thing, I don't think this movie will do much for you.

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