Movie Review: 28 Weeks Later

Not only has summer arrived---I've been on a writing kick, if you've not noticed. I treated myself to the "On Writing Horror" text from Writer's Digest and getting back into the swing of things that go bump in the night. So it comes to be that I wanted to see this horror flick, to kinda rekindle a zombie story I had worked on two years ago for my partner.

I suppose I could should have picked up Brooks' "World War Z" instead.

I really wanted this movie to be good, I really did. A recent conversation with my better half renewed in my mind something of an alarming trend in summer fare--bigger special effects and lesser storylines. It seems that Hollywood keeps thinking that if they dazzle us with the lighting, we won't see that we really don't give a crap about what's happening.

Which is interesting. Callium Murphy (yeah, I spelled it wrong, you have an issue with that?) powered us into the first part of this tale, way back in Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" (to which this is a sequel)--his strong presence emphasized a real individual unsure of what to do in a zombie-filled England. He goes from geek to killing machine by the end of the movie. And we cared about him. We cared about him and his desires so much that when his friends were threatened, we were too.

But again, the imagery of horrific red-eyed monsters took over, and that movie too, sank under it's own weight. The terrific first act ends up in a locked manor house in the second act and removes us from what scares us--the flesh munching zombies. Sure, the message was there, THANK GOD, to keep me watching. For that manner house was filled with sex crazed military types.

But really, don't we already know that the real monsters are ourselves? I watch the news enough.

This movie keeps that theme going. Most of the zombies are dead, having starved to death and, of course, the repatriation of England has begun. A small green zone (hmmmm, art imitating Iraqi life, perhaps?) has been estabalished in central London. Prior to this moment, a small opening flashback has the terrific Robert Carlyle literally abandoning his wife to be zombie-kibble while he hightails it out of sight. See? We're still evil.

But why? Why leave your wife? Well, golly gee, there's the first of several loopholes this film decides we're too stupid to worry about.

And begins to prove--the storylines are STILL thin.

But the movie looks great!

I just realized this is the opposite of Pirates 3. Too much story there.

But not Robbie's character. He left his wife. The wife he was more than willing to go all Frenchie with in the kitchen not two minutes earilier.

Men. The wife is devoured, or so it seems, and Robbie's character is carted off to London. Seems his kids were on vacation when this nasty RAGE virus broke out and now are allowed to come back into England to live with dear old turncoat dad.

Ooooo. Folks, we have a Character with a Secret that will effect every action he has for the rest of the movie. The weight and motivation has been added, so we, the audience can watch and see if this burning secret, this non-effect murder of his own wife, will do something.

But alas, it's not to be. So what we have here is another great start but zero payoff. The kids are a bit of enignma too. They are permitted in with the statement that, "you are now, quite possibly, the youngest kid in all of Britian." In other words, they weren't letting kids in. But they let this one in.

How nice. Why aren't you letting the kids? I know they are a bit of a problem controling and everything, but why not?

Loophole? Anyone?

Okay, so forget the loophole--those two kids escape, see, and, well, without listing the spoilers, bring the zombies back into London with renewed vengeance.

Including dear old mom. See, she wasn't dead. Or she was, sorta. Or well, LOOPHOLE.

And our characters? Who cares? The writers, producers and director didn't, so why should we. They are treated like chessboard pieces, required to make their moves in standard horror fashion at the right time.

Which is sad, really. They really had potential here. Yes, the imagery is perfect too. There's a scene of carpet bombing London! LONDON! There's excellent performers, even tho they are being forced to slog through this, who are really giving it a go.

But without the characters being filled out--we began to lag in caring. As my "On Writing Horror" book illustrates numerous ways, we, as an audience will not encounter vampires (or ghosts or werewolves or what have you) so we have to give protagonists to parallel. The more 3-D those characters are, the more we want them to live through the perils before them.

I'm tended to think of Kathy Bates' character in "Misery." She was such a good actress and it was so well written, she made a villain that we, in the end, felt pity for. We knew what she would do--and the horror was we understand why.

In the end, I was rooting for the zombies. They looked better and at least had motivations for their actions.

In the end, it is sad. We have all of these sequels before us and they are falling flat.

Maybe I need to move to Hollywood. This many loopholes; this much talent wasted, well, it is not like I can do any worse.

Sure, there were times during the movie I said to myself, "what would I do in a similar situation?" Of course, my answer would be that I'd start writing a better reality.