Review of 28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later has some big ideas fall through the giant holes in the plot

I’m not exactly sure why I’m on a zombie movie kick, but I’m just gonna throw away this leftover chicken just in case.

28 Weeks Later is the inevitable sequel to the surprise hit 28 Days Later, which, though not so bad on its own, opened the floodgates for raging rivers of bad zombie movies everywhere. The actual sequel to that movie included.

I will give this movie its credit. It follows through with some clever ideas. The quarantine of London proper, the reintegration of the returning people, the partial immunity to the virus. It was all set up really well. But then they had some problems. How do we uncover the mother? And so they had some children sneak across a bridge fortified with the National Guard. You know, like it’s Spy Kids. How do we expose someone else to the virus? Oh! I know! Let’s just leave the only confirmed case of a person immune to the virus WHILE STILL CARRYING IT alone for – oh, I don’t know – any amount of time at all. I don’t know much about the military, but I really hope this isn’t the competence level of the actual National Guard. Including the altruistic and necessary, but globally reckless mutiny from Jeremy Renner, in his warmup role for Hawkeye.

Unlike last movie, this was one that didn’t know quite what it wanted to be. Does it want to move on from the slasher genre into the more cerebral realm? Or does it want to keep its zombie gotcha scare tactic roots? Because when you try to have both, the audience gets confused and doesn’t know how to feel. Honestly, even if it did pick one tunnel to go through, it would have taken some serious work to pull it together. The plot already had the aforementioned chasms, and you don’t bring in Idris Elba and Jeremy Renner to make a high budget slasher flick. Maybe it’s like sneezing with your eyes open. It’s just simply impossible to make a zombie movie that makes sense.

To me.

4/10

Dustin Fisher