28 Weeks Later...

28 Weeks Later forgot everything that made its predecessor so special and exciting. I say "exciting" in reference to its innovations and creativity. The second copies the style of the first, but moves into more gore, less character (while there are many more actors than the first), and big set pieces. The writing feels very clunky at times. The conversational tone of the first is left behind for military speak and odd interaction between the two children and anyone they come in contact with. A reoccurring infected (zombie) got under my skin in a very bothersome way. On the plus side: there are some chilling scenes. A journey through a dark subway station littered with dead and only a first person view of night vision for the audience built great suspense and genuine scares. A chase in the beginning (seen in the trailer) where Robert Carlyle races away from a horde of very fast, snarling, slobbering infected is thrilling. But that may be the biggest problem I had with the film: other than these two excellent suspenseful and scary scenes, the film fell into the “Bump in the Silence” scares. Quiet followed by jarring music and movement or sound was prevalent. The slowly building and well designed chilling atmosphere of the first film is all but missing from its sequel.

Side note: It is unfair for me to make this complaint, but I must for my own benefit. The characters…oh, the characters…well, what’s the big deal about the two kids, heck, the soldiers, the dad, the mom? Don’t get me wrong; I was rooting for them. Rather than investing myself in characters and genuinely caring about them as I had in the superior 28 Days Later, I was only rooting for the heroes in 28 Weeks Later because they were children, alive, human, and in trouble. I never got to know the characters at all. Any attempt to make the characters accessible was shoddy and primarily failed. I can easily chalk the lack of character development up to the constraints of the plot. Conversations about home and the horror of it all can’t really happen when you’re running for your life the entire (well, most of it) movie. But I missed it, the character development.

Side note 2: The gore was a problem for me as well. I realize this is just a personal reaction to the film element. Others may have watched the first and thought, “WTF, man! Where’s the guts, the blood? More! More!” Indeed, the genre currently demands buckets. However, one of the things that helped the first film work so well for me was the simplicity of the “action/horror” scenes – intense, but not over the top. In 28 Weeks Later, the gore is featured, stressed, put front and center in the “action/horror” scenes. The peak of the gore was a helicopter scene that one of my friends loved, but made me cringe from the ridiculous, indulgent nature of the end result. “Really?” I asked myself. “They really just did that?” In that way, I think the filmmakers achieved one of their goals. But I could have used some more atmosphere – like the subway scene – and less gore.

A repeat viewing made do wonders for my reaction to the film with new lowered expectations (they were very, very high).

**1/2