28 Days Later (2002)

Plot Outline: A group of animal rights activists break into a research facility to release some imprisoned monkeys which have been experimented on. Unfortunately for Britain, the monkeys were infected with the "Rage" virus which turns people into murderous and uncontrollable killing machines. 28 days later, the whole of the UK has been infected. This film charts the story of a group of survivors who band together and head for a military base in the hope of surviving for good. But the Rage virus isn't the only thing they have to worry about as the military have other ideas on how to "survive."

The Review: Those expecting a Day of the Dead post-apocalyptic splatter fest will be disappointed. This is not a horror film - it's a thriller with horror elements in it and director Boyle borrows heavily from other superior films, namely Romero's zombie trilogy and surprisingly, even borrows from The Crazies, in which crazy people, not zombies, go around attacking everyone. This film starts off like Day of the Triffids in which a man awakens from hospital to find the world a changed place. The opening shots of an empty London are pretty good but one can't help but imagine that off camera, the real people of London are being held back until shooting has finished. Unlike the abandoned streets full of bodies and rubbish in the opening of Day of the Dead, the streets of London are empty. No bodies. Very little rubbish. If this Rage virus has spread, surely there will be bodies of people who've been killed by the "infected." The film then switches into Dawn of the Dead mode as the survivors run amok in empty places like supermarkets, forgetting what is happening around them for a while. Again this has been done better in the aforementioned film. Then the film turns into a poor version of Day of the Dead with the scenario being the same - group of people band up in a place they think is protected by the military, the soldier characters being almost identically hollow, and hell, they even keep a pet "Infected" much like "Bub" the zombie. I was for hoping for a similar ending too - where the dead break into the compound and kill basically everyone. But it wasn't to be and we get a relatively weak finale and an even more tacky final scene. Brendan Gleeson is the only standout from the cast. He makes his character easy to sympathise with and when he finally turns, you really feel sorry for him. He's not exactly a top star but holds his own in a relatively young cast. The script is to blame here as they are all made out to be really obnoxious and evil so you don't care when they all get it in the end. It's a shame more of the main characters didn't get killed off to add a bit more menace and mood to the film.

Final Verdict: With precisely no marks for originality and plenty of talking, 28 Days Later was a let down. It sounded promising but didn't delivering, ending up like an amalgamation of Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. This isn't a bad thing really but those two films give the "end of the world" impression a lot more convincingly. I'll give the film credit for focusing on characters like the aforementioned films did but at least they had bite when they needed to.

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