28 Weeks Later

Year: 2007
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Mackintosh Muggleton, Imogen Poots, Idris Elba

5 years ago, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland made 28 Days Later, a horror thriller centering around a deadly virus that turns those who are infected into murderous killers on a rage high. In that film, a group of survivors try to stay alive after the virus wipes out most of England and turned half the population into killers. And now we have a sequel.

28 Weeks Later begins in England, again. A prologue shows a couple, Don & Alice taking shelter with an old and a young couple in a house barricaded from the inside. After a scared boy shows up on their doorstep, the infected make their way through and chaos follows very quickly. In an act of cowardice, Don leaves Alice behind and heads for the river, successfully escaping.

And then, 28 weeks later, England is on the verge of repairing itself. The Americans have arrived and taken control. The last of the infected have perished, and the military are slowly cleaning up the cities. Britons are slowly being allowed to go back to their homes. We see Don greeting the arrival of his 2 children, Tammy and Andy, back from Spain (that's where they were during the outbreak).

We are introduced to the key characters in the military: Scarlet, the doctor who fears the virus may still be among the living and another outbreak is imminent; Doyle, a sniper who guards the city from the rooftops; Flynn, a helicopter pilot patrolling the skies; and General Stone, the superior in command. Everything seems fine until Tammy & Andy break curfew and go back to their old house and find their mother alive. The military bring her back for testing, trying to figure out if she is infected or not. And that's when the trouble begins....

Boyle and Garland serve as executive producers this time around, handing the reins over to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who not only directs this instalment, but also wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffe. As far as the look and feel of the film goes, Fresnadillo does alright. The action sequences during the outbreak are well-handled, save for a few moments when the cinematography suffers due to shaky camera work or intentional bad lighting. The actors all perform well in their respective roles. Carlyle stands out as the guilt ridden Don while Byrne is the heart and common sense as her character Scarlet. However, despite the good performances, the characters in general are not very well written compared to their predecessors. You don't feel too much for them when they perish.

The film's worst point is the plot. The curfew supposedly imposed by the military is badly handled, which makes no sense. I mean, we are talking about the military, and what use is the curfew if two teenagers can sneak out of it? And like most American military personnel, they seem so confident of being able to handle the crisis, until the crisis actually hits them. That's quite tiresome. Boyle did a great job in instilling fear in his film, you won't get much of that here unfortunately.

But credit has to be given to the music director, who uses the right tones and sounds for a film such as this. Another plus point is the memorable action sequence when Flynn, played by Perrineau, uses his helicopter blades to shred a group of infected humans to pieces. If only we had more elements like these, and better storytelling to make this a worthy sequel.

Verdict: Not as good as the original. Watch that instead. (3/5)