28 Weeks Later
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writer: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique López Lavigne, Jesús Olmo
Sequel to: 28 Days Later…
Cast: Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Idris Elba
Seen on: 02.04.2015

Plot:
After the virus outbreak that decimated the population of the UK, it is time to rebuild and repopulate the island. Don (Robert Carlyle) survived on the island and is waiting for his children Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) to join him – the first children back on UK soil. Medical officer Scarlet (Rose Byrne) is a little miffed that she wasn’t informed about it – and she really doesn’t approve. Another outbreak could still happen. When the children find their obviously infected and supposedly dead mother (Catherine McCormack), everything starts to go wrong.

28 Weeks Later was a more than decent zombie movie. Even if I didn’t totally love it, I very much enjoyed it and I thought it was a really good sequel.

Going into the film, what I heard most about was the heterochromia. I didn’t know the plot or the cast, but I knew that somehow having two differently colored eyes was extremely relevant. So I was quite surprised when this was barely a plot point in the film. I mean, yes, of course it’s there and it isn’t subtle, but the film was busy with other things. I didn’t mind, I just didn’t expect that.

But that is the only thing that the film introduces into the world that was built in 28 Days Later… in terms of how things work. Other than that it sticks with what its predecessor set up, right down to the message of “trust in the system”: things only get fucked up when people don’t stick to the rules because they think that the rules are wrong or have been abandoned anyway. If everybody had kept their calm and had kept up protocol, there wouldn’t have been turns for the worse in both movies. In fact, there wouldn’t have been a virus crisis at all. As such, these are some of the least subversive films that I know of.

While that did bother me, especially since some of the rules were really stupid (like “let’s gather all the civilians in a way too small basement, lock and guard the exits – but not all the exits and hope that there won’t be a mass panic), I liked the fucked-up feeling of the ending and the sense of impending disaster that came with it.

I also really liked the characters and how they came together, which was particularly nice after the slightly disjointed beginning. Also, a movie can only profit from a (slightly) villainous Robert Carlyle. [SPOILER] That he is turned into a zombie who starts to particularly hunt for his children, and generally that entire family dynamic would be worth to analyze further. [/SPOILER]

There was enough in the film to keep me thoroughly engaged, even despite my slight misgivings about it. I’d call that a win.

Summarizing: Very nice.