28 Weeks Later

Starring: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, & Mackintosh Muggleton

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

In 2002, Director, Danny Boyle re-invented the zombie movie with his groundbreaking film 28 Days Later. Many credit Boyle with the current zombie craze we enjoy eleven years later. What made that film so enjoyable was that at the time it was a story we hadn't seen in a long time and it was shot in a way that made it look like a much older film than it was. Five years later the studio wanted a sequel and Boyle wanted no part of it, knowing that it would never live up to the original and indeed it does not. 28 Weeks Later is a continuation of the story, which claims that all the infected had starved to death and that England is free of infection once again. People start moving back in to areas of the country that have been fixed up for them and which are protected by the U.S. Government. We are then introduced to a family which has been reunited. The film starts out with a tremendous action scene that was the only part of the film I enjoyed and the only part that is reminiscent of the first film. The terrific opening is followed by a long, sappy, family reunion and then by a sick person being found. From that point, literally within ten minutes hundreds of people are infected and the army is shooting everything in sight. How could zombies have starved in the first place, but more importantly how can so many people change, just like that, within ten minutes? It didn't make any sense at all, to make things worse, all dialogue and storyline ends at that point and the movie turns into one big gory chase scene without any substance whatsoever. As for the cast of this film, they did nothing to help the story. In the first film, Cillian Murphy was amazing and carried us through the low points, but here it's a cast of newcomers and unsuccessful character actors, who quickly bring the story to a halt. I was looking forward to seeing this film, but not only doesn't it compare to the first film, but it doesn't even live up to the broad genre it is exposing us to. The cast was sloppy, the direction was confusing, and worst of all it just doesn't make any fucking sense! 28 Days Later was groundbreaking, but it's sequel is nothing more than an over-hyped movie that never should have been made.