28 DAYS LATER ..... Any comments?

rotten tomatoes villlage voice ^ | June Late 2003 | Michael Atkinson

[dennisw]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1123236/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=1&rid=1168298

To every creatively frozen, summer-movie ice age comes a little heat lightning, and these gray dog days it's Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. On one hand a seat-o'-pants digital-video quickie designed for blunt trauma, and on the other a veritable index of classic genre-stuff, Boyle's film creates an acute sense of movie-viewing danger. You're never sure that what you'll see will be completely safe and blockbustery. Because it's cut-rate, star-free (supporting players Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston are as close to marquee names as it gets), outlandishly edge-conscious, and 100 percent British, the movie has a frontier charge built in. It's no landmark—it's too derivative and, finally, tasteful—but unassuming ticket buyers may be spot-welded to their seats with an unfamiliar intensity.

Screenwriter Alex Garland literally drops in the name of the film as an intertitle following a disastrous animal lab liberation in which eco-activists release virally infected chimps into the world. Four weeks later, naked nobody Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital to find London an empty maze of post-apocalyptic silence, wreckage, and broodingly useless landmarks. It doesn't take long for him to stumble upon a dozing mob of the "infected"—essentially, George Romero-style cannibal zombies, distinguished by their red contact lenses, body-snatcher screech, and rigor-mortis-free speed—or to be rescued by Mark and Selena (Noah Huntley and the redoubtable Naomie Harris), a pair of no-nonsense vigilante humans brimming with exposition.

England, it seems, has been wholly evacuated; exactly how far beyond its shores the plague spread is a matter of conflicting rumor. It hardly matters—the scenario quickly boils down to Dawn of the Dead hack-or-be-chomped. The jittery social collapse in Night of the Living Dead, Romero's first Dead film, is conveniently hopscotched, but even so, that seminal nightmare's upcoming teen re-remake is now rendered altogether moot. Returning after the H-bomb crater of The Beach to an ultra-cheap guerrilla moviemaking he'd never actually experienced, Boyle allows the digital fuzz to despoil powerful post-apocalyptic tableaux, as if the film itself were news footage, and offers up only fleeting glimpses of historically suggestive imagery (an inert Payloader full of gray bodies is a mere reflection in a passing car window). He also overemploys the ubiquitous Saving Private Ryan shutter-strobe effect during action scenes, using its eye-upsetting tumult to economically disguise the fact that very little of the flesh-rending and limb-hacking is actually on-screen. (This technique is also forgiving to drooling zombie actors.) The subjective approximation of a hysterical, head-shaking frenzy, it's a presumptuous strategy that gets under your skin anyway.

It's a shame Boyle and Garland took only what was easy in Romero (the ecstasy of shopping in an unpoliced world, the unambiguous joy of mowing down subhumans) and didn't dig for metaphoric frisson. Romero had Vietnam and post-industrial consumerism; what do Boyle and Garland have? The threat of instant infection—Gleeson's jovial dad meets a decidedly outrageous fate, seen from the inside of a falling drop of blood—only evokes itself. Pick your virus. There's nothing as transgressive in 28 Days Later as the Night of the Living Dead moment in which a newly resurrected child zombie eviscerates and cannibalizes her own mother, or, for that matter, Night's final evocation of mid-century Alabama. Garland's script has the kernel of an idea in the third act, when the survivors find Eccleston's army brigade holed up in a country mansion, ready to restart the human race. As in Romero's severely underrated The Crazies, the dread of military enforcement outweighs the fear of what it's meant to control. For Naomie Harris's wary, fierce machete-maiden, the prospect of being a jarhead concubine and gunpoint baby factory makes the landscape of man-eaters look reasonable.

[dennisw]

"Dawn of the Dead" is utter garbage compared to this film. I saw it and it was well done with a postive ending. Actors I liked the most were the girl and her father. She has a career ahead of her.

I'm a big Terminator fan so that's next and only other movie of interest.

[Hazzardgate]

"Dawn of the Dead" is utter garbage compared to this film

Them are fighting words

[dennisw]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/28DaysLater-1123236/reviews.php?rtp=1

28 Days Later (2003

 RATING: FRESH  READING: 88%

(FRESH = 60% or Greater)

Reviews counted: 117
Fresh: 103  Rotten: 14
Average Rating: 7.5/10

[Hazzardgate]

Hey, no need to preach to the choir! I liked 28 DAYS LATER. But it's not a patch on DAWN, or even DAY OF THE DEAD.

And I can't understand why everyone is comparing it to the Romero trilogy ...

28 DAYS LATER steals/homages much more from John Wyndam's "Day of the Triffids", both the novel and the 1981 BBC television adaptation.

[rabidralph]

28 DAYS LATER steals/homages much more from John Wyndam's "Day of the Triffids", both the novel and the 1981 BBC television adaptation.

How about a slightly parallel "sequel" to 12 Monkeys. Except regular zoo animals were released rather than medical ones.

[rabidralph]

When I first saw this title, I thought it was going to be a movie about PMS.

[dennisw]

And I can't understand why everyone is comparing it to the Romero trilogy ...

I agree. It steals from "On the Beach" but so what? It's a good "end of the world" movie. I liked how he had the same pounding music at beginning and end.

I liked this all Brit film... more raw and spare than if Hollywood made it

[Hazzardgate]

Definately ..... I think Alex Garland intended it to be a pot porri of ideas and references from other films and books. It also references THREADS, the British nuclear war film from 1983 that was their responce to THE DAY AFTER.

I have a multi-region DVD player, so I've had 28 DAYS LATER on disc for months (it was released in the UK months ago). There is a very neat extra about the original ending, which was far more bleak. Shame they didn't use it!

[JennysCool]

When I first saw this title, I thought it was going to be a movie about PMS.

There are still some things too gruesome for the movies.

[Hazzardgate]

lol ...

On a similar tip, I hear that some people think 28 DAYS LATER is infact a sequel to

[rabidralph]

LOL! Too true. And it would be an NC-17 at a minimum. Like Jack said, some people "can't handle the truth."

[Puppage]

I'm a big Terminator fan so that's next

Chick Terminator = Crap.

IMHO, of course.

[vikingchick]

Well, dennis, we'll have to disagree on this one. Yes, I liked the ending. That was good. But it really dragged during too much of the movie. I was getting antsy way too often.

The zombies weren't as much scary as disgusting. It frustrated me that the characters only had bats and knives to defend themselves (yes, I know it's England and they can't have guns, but nonetheless, it was maddening. I mean, I'd find a crossbow at the very least.) Stabbing the zombies up close and personal was a big risk to the attacker with all the blood splattering around, so why not find some weapons so you didn't have to get so close to them?

I did not like the main young guy, but that's completely subjective I know. He was a total wimp until the end.

I suppose I was expecting more of a creepy 'vibe' that the website had promised but didn't deliver.

Bottom line: wished I'd waited until the DVD came out.

That's all. Maybe I was expecting too much. Nothing compares to The Stand's first couple of hours for creepy end of the world stuff. Now THAT was excellent.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

The movie was awesome, although roughly 20 or so people left in the middle, I think the people that left were wanting a lame, kill'em all and blood everywhere type movie and were disappointed with a smart and tense movie.

The movie had people on the edge of their seats and remined me of the first night showing of "Blair Witch" a few years ago

[RandallFlagg]

28 DAYS LATER steals/homages much more from John Wyndam's "Day of the Triffids", both the novel and the 1981 BBC television adaptation.

HOLY CRAP!! I've been looking for a copy of that television adaptation forever!

Umm, You wouldn't happen to have a copy, would ya?

[nahbi]

Not bad, BUT: Suspension of Disbelief (besides the Zombie thing, that is...). Okay, even with the stringent firearms restrictions in the UK, I believe it would have been possible to find something with a little more "reach" then Molotov Cocktails, a machete, tire iron, or a baseball bat (hmmm--perchance it should have been a "cricket" bat...). Hey--even the British Constabulary have desginated armed tactical response teams. Or how about a set of matched 12-bore Purdies from an outdoor shop? Not to mention TA armouries in most communities. C'mon--they coulda scounged up something a little more potent. And, when our intrepid bike courier turned Rambo DID have a chance at all of those handy SA-80s laying about, he mostly trod upon them, uilizing one only to free the "pet" zombie the Squaddies had chained up for "observation" (btw--kind of a ripoff of "Bub" in "Day of the Living Dead). Arms issues aside, I did enjoy the flick quite a bit--kind of a anglophile having lived in the UK for over four years. Better than "28 Days Later," was a vintage BBC Series "Survivors." True post-plague survival stuff and even aired on PBS in North Dakota!! Ah, time to put on the Barbour and sit back with some Maltesers and a pint of bitter...
Nahbi
p.s. This movie made it's U.S. debut, I believe, at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.. I didn't get to see it, though, as I was working. Oliver Stone's "Commandante" was pretty darn fine, however...

[Grit]

Bite your tongue! Although I have yet to see 28 days, but I don't see how that is possible.

[Dane]

Saw 28 Days Later on F/X a couple of nights ago.

The first half was very good, but the second half when they got to the Army base dragged on and was boring.