28 Weeks Later: Saving Europe from itself is an endless task
28 Days Later is a fairly pointless but occasionally entertaining movie about a group of Englishmen trying to survive an epidemic that turns people into rabid man biters.
The sequel 28 Weeks Later is about an American effort to normalize Britain after the outbreak appears to have died out due to a lack of uninfected people for the virus to infect. But it unsurprisingly turns out that the virus is still kicking around and Cool Britannia again turns into Drool Britannia as the virus makes seriously short-tempered hooligans out of the relatively few remaining chaps. The U.S. troops originally dispatched to protect and aid the survivors suddenly find the virus-infected survivors to be the enemy and respond with wide-spread killing. Well-intended U.S. troops killing locals: I’m sure there’s some commentary on contemporary politics deep in there somewhere.
Or perhaps the movie’s message - which is by no means central to its heaping serving of good old fashioned entertainment - is that Europeans make a hash of everything and need the Americans to bail them out everytime (think World War I, World War II, and the Cold War). Considering that the director is Spanish, maybe one should see the infected as Franco’s cohorts, the Americans as the combined intruders supposedly there to help (a la Stalin/Hitler/Mussolini) and the survivors as the poor Spaniards caught between a rock and a shitstorm. Or maybe the message is simply that Europe’s the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. But probably not.
Some other bloggers on 28 Weeks Later:
Dave at Son and Foe sees Weeks as an improvement over Days:
“although 28 Weeks Later picks up directly after the first film and remains entirely faithful, it also stands perfectly well on its own and manages to rectify almost every failing of the original.”
Scott Robinson was put off by the movie’s uneven quality:
“inconsistently great - I would be totally engrossed by a scene, and then a two second clip of the most retarded events would be shown.”
DB Light at PAWaterCooler likes it:
“The film has a lot to recommend it. Excellent pacing, interesting camera work, and marvelously evocative use of London locales. …I had a good time”
Me too.