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28 Weeks Later, 2007
Following the events from the first film, the rage virus has spread through England. Don (Robert Carlyle) is forced to make some hard choices in order to survive, and after a glimpse of his desperate life on the run from the infected, we catch up with him 28 weeks later as the virus is supposedly eradicated from the UK. Don’s children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), reunite with their father in a “safe zone,” that is overseen by the United States military. As a modestly-sized community begins to build, scientist Scarlet (Rose Byrne) worries that the virus may not be truly in the past.
This is a decent sequel, but it pales in comparison to the original and suffers frequently from comparison.
I had high hopes for this one, as I remember it getting decent reviews on its release and I’ve frequently seen it mentioned on lists of sequels that don’t stink.
Everything in this movie comes as a double-edged sword. I liked the cast, all of whom give good performances. But the strength of that cast--which includes Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba, Catherine McCormack, and Harold Parrineau---calls attention to just how thinly this film spreads itself.
The original film concerned itself with a found family: Jim, Selena, and father-daughter Frank and Hannah. There’s a solid foundation in this film whereby Don is not being entirely honest with his children about how he made it through the epidemic alive. But instead of building this plot out and developing those characters and relationships, we get frequent cut-aways to other scenes. I don’t mind the idea of trying to take more of a big-picture view of the outbreak, but this film seems to want to have things both ways. Unfortunately, if you only spend like 10 minutes with a character, them being put in danger or killed just isn’t going to hit the same way. Don is the most relatable character simply because of the amount of time we spend with him, but we know next to nothing about everyone else.
Like the original film, this one goes frequently to that shaky hand-held look. This wouldn’t be a problem but for the way that it contrasts with sequences that are shot in a much slicker, traditional Hollywood style.
Really the biggest sin of the film, however, is the way that it attempts to trade on the emotions and goodwill from the first film. If you have seen the original film, you can probably easily picture the sequence toward the end of the film set to John Murphy’s “In the House, In a Heartbeat”. Just hearing that song brings that moment, visuals and emotions, storming to the front of my brain. Well, the makers of this film are also apparently fans, as they use the music like four different times. While I was willing to allow the first use--as kind of a bridge from the original to this sequel---around the third time the music cued up, I started to get surly. Not merely because of the overuse, but because every time that music kicked it it just called attention to the fact that nothing on screen was anywhere close to rivaling that moment from the original movie. This film did not put in the work to earn any such moment, and we’re left with characters in peril who even 80 minutes into the film seems shallowly sketched out. Comparing that to Selena wielding a machete as you-know-what happens? No way.
And I won’t spend many words complaining about plot implausibilities, but there were many, many times that I just went, “Really?”. A certain someone not being guarded by a single person? Certain people just being able to slip out with no one noticing? A total lack of emergency response plans? I’m not saying that there haven’t been real-world examples of terrible planning and the like, but a lot of moments felt like stupid things were put in the film to steer events the way they wanted.
Not bad, but it really undercuts itself by calling attention back to the original.
28 Weeks Later, 2007
Following the events from the first film, the rage virus has spread through England. Don (Robert Carlyle) is forced to make some hard choices in order to survive, and after a glimpse of his desperate life on the run from the infected, we catch up with him 28 weeks later as the virus is supposedly eradicated from the UK. Don’s children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), reunite with their father in a “safe zone,” that is overseen by the United States military. As a modestly-sized community begins to build, scientist Scarlet (Rose Byrne) worries that the virus may not be truly in the past.
This is a decent sequel, but it pales in comparison to the original and suffers frequently from comparison.
I had high hopes for this one, as I remember it getting decent reviews on its release and I’ve frequently seen it mentioned on lists of sequels that don’t stink.
Everything in this movie comes as a double-edged sword. I liked the cast, all of whom give good performances. But the strength of that cast--which includes Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba, Catherine McCormack, and Harold Parrineau---calls attention to just how thinly this film spreads itself.
The original film concerned itself with a found family: Jim, Selena, and father-daughter Frank and Hannah. There’s a solid foundation in this film whereby Don is not being entirely honest with his children about how he made it through the epidemic alive. But instead of building this plot out and developing those characters and relationships, we get frequent cut-aways to other scenes. I don’t mind the idea of trying to take more of a big-picture view of the outbreak, but this film seems to want to have things both ways. Unfortunately, if you only spend like 10 minutes with a character, them being put in danger or killed just isn’t going to hit the same way. Don is the most relatable character simply because of the amount of time we spend with him, but we know next to nothing about everyone else.
Like the original film, this one goes frequently to that shaky hand-held look. This wouldn’t be a problem but for the way that it contrasts with sequences that are shot in a much slicker, traditional Hollywood style.
Really the biggest sin of the film, however, is the way that it attempts to trade on the emotions and goodwill from the first film. If you have seen the original film, you can probably easily picture the sequence toward the end of the film set to John Murphy’s “In the House, In a Heartbeat”. Just hearing that song brings that moment, visuals and emotions, storming to the front of my brain. Well, the makers of this film are also apparently fans, as they use the music like four different times. While I was willing to allow the first use--as kind of a bridge from the original to this sequel---around the third time the music cued up, I started to get surly. Not merely because of the overuse, but because every time that music kicked it it just called attention to the fact that nothing on screen was anywhere close to rivaling that moment from the original movie. This film did not put in the work to earn any such moment, and we’re left with characters in peril who even 80 minutes into the film seems shallowly sketched out. Comparing that to Selena wielding a machete as you-know-what happens? No way.
And I won’t spend many words complaining about plot implausibilities, but there were many, many times that I just went, “Really?”. A certain someone not being guarded by a single person? Certain people just being able to slip out with no one noticing? A total lack of emergency response plans? I’m not saying that there haven’t been real-world examples of terrible planning and the like, but a lot of moments felt like stupid things were put in the film to steer events the way they wanted.
Not bad, but it really undercuts itself by calling attention back to the original.