28 Weeks Later Review

This movie has all the potential to become something amazing. The on-site location of a London to shoot to the movie, lots of people, a larger budget than the last, and there aren't any big name actors in it. That said let's take a look at a movie with zombies that are jacked up on steroids. Going into this movie I expected a decent amount of gore with an alright storyline to tag along. The concept behind this movie was 28 weeks later after a huge virus broke out in England, the US government has come in to help clean up and move people slowly back into their homes. Of course there is that one damn person who becomes a carrier, and doesn't get infected by the disease.

The story starts out with a bunch of random strangers shacked up in a farm house, when a kid comes to the door to escape zombies, he brings all the havoc with him. Of the 7 people inside only 1 was thought to make it out, this was the father of the children the movie is based around. The twist occurs because the father had abandon his wife to escape in fear he might get bit. When the children come back to the city they escape to areas where they aren't allowed to go to. They find there mother, but she has been bit. The rest I'll leave to the imagination.

With a mellow, yet intense theme song representing the movie, it seems you can almost do anything and scare people. As you will see in the first 20 minutes. The movie starts out pretty damn cool, no introduction of cast members, just an all out zombie fest. I'm not sure of the technical term for the use of mixing sound, and special effects with timing of attacks by monsters, but they use it well. Sad to say they didn't use the same skill with the video editing and camera work. Whenever the zombies attack the camera goes all "Blair Witch" on the viewers, and it's quite annoying. Trust me, I understand that complete havoc is occurring and that everyone is turning on their fellow man. Yet, I don't need a headache. Some of the best parts of this movie are ruined by the camera work. There is one part were a lady is leading the children away from the US Army, and she is using a night vision scope lens on a rifle. Instead of having them follow her, we are looking through this lens for about 5 minutes as she tells them to make a left or right and all we see are the big eyes of these lost and confused children. This really hurts the appeal of the movie.

Then we have some flaws in the script. Why in the world is the army killing innocent people, when it's obvious if someone is infected or not. Why does the helicopter pilot go nuts when the one guy jumps on for help? Why didn't they use gas right away instead of bombing and destroying the whole city? Why in the world with lock down and security everywhere, weren't there people around the mother guarding intruders? How in the hell did the father become a thinker when he got the virus? Why were some soldiers just dead on the ground without having turned bad? Why did they lock the people up without protecting them in the cellar?

So many unanswered questions, make a poor excuse for a movie. This may be the end of the zombie generation of movies at least for a few decades. I hope they make a trilogy out of this, even though I just bashed it. I would love to see American forces storm the beaches of Normandy again and just complete destroy these damn zombies. Although the smart thing would be to drop the bomb, but hey, we're America when do we ever make civilized decisions?
The score is great, the setting is perfect, the acting alright, the script is pathetic. Mix it all up and shake it around, throw in some carnage and crazy scenes where zombies bang there heads against glass at a rate of 100 times a second, and you get a 3 out of 5. It's entertaining, but it will also give you a headache with all the camera angles, and loopholes.