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Zombies win again

By Glenn Whipp
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Friday, May 11, 2007, Page 16

First there was 28 Days Later, which was a highly entertaining movie, now comes 28 Weeks Later, which fails to live up to expectations. All bets are off on a possible 28 Months Later.' PHOTOS: COURTESY OF FOX MOVIES

It's 28 Weeks Later, and those rapid, raging zombies from 28 Days Later are all dead from starvation. The last infected human died six months ago. Great Britain is empty, but the US military is beginning to let people trickle back into the country. What could go wrong?

OK, allowing people back onto an island full of diseased, rotting corpses, wild dogs and rabid vermin (and not just limited to soccer hooligans) might not be such a good idea, even if the 15,000 refugees are being quarantined in a tightly controlled (yeah, right) area.

Even worse: Apparently there's only one pub in the relocation zone.

You want rage-fueled terror? Tell an Englishman he has to wait an hour for a pint and see what happens.

Bad thinking of this sort abounds in 28 Weeks Later, a movie with one intriguing new idea, a host of old ones borrowed from its vastly superior predecessor and absolutely no interesting characters to follow once the body parts hit the fan.

For director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who wrote the movie with three other credited writers, this sequel is all about spilling buckets of blood, taking easy potshots at US foreign policy and delivering terror in the bluntest fashion possible.

First there was 28 Days Later, which was a highly entertaining movie, now comes 28 Weeks Later, which fails to live up to expectations. All bets are off on a possible 28 Months Later.`

Now, you might ask: What's wrong with that? In theory, nothing. The best zombie movies have always had plenty of sociopolitical context, intended and otherwise. In 28 Weeks, when all hell breaks loose, occupying soldiers find themselves in a no-win situation, unable to tell the difference between civilians and the "infected" enemy. The solution?

First there was 28 Days Later, which was a highly entertaining movie, now comes 28 Weeks Later, which fails to live up to expectations. All bets are off on a possible 28 Months Later.`

"Shoot everything," a commander orders. "We've lost control."

Mission accomplished, indeed. But aside from a bravura opening sequence, it's Fresnadillo (Intacto) who has lost control. For a movie about fast-moving zombies, there's a strange lack of momentum and suspense amid all the shaky camera work and showers of blood.

Mostly, we're following a ragtag group of stiff survivors trying to get out of Dodge before the US military sprays another round of chemical weapons. They're just meat for the grinder, not the flesh-and-blood characters that the original had in abundance, thanks to the work of lyrical director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland.

Film notes 28 WEEKS LATER DIRECTED BY: Uan Carlos Fresnadillo STARRING: Catherine McCormack (Alice), Robert Carlyle (Don) Amanda Walker (Sally), Shahid Ahmed (Jacob), Garfield Morgan (Geoff), Emily Beecham (Karen) RUNNING TIME: 91 MINUTES TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY

The redundant Weeks does have something of a family angle, though it botches that too, while betraying the logic of the movie's zombie science. As we learned in 28 Days Later, when contaminated, humans have about 20 seconds before the major organs liquefy and there's the blood-spitting and vomiting and whatnot. After that: Bad-tempered brain eating.

Here, though, a father (Robert Carlyle) has the presence of mind to behave in a way ... . Well, let's not get into it. Blood is thicker than water, except when it's up to your ankles. Fresnadillo knows how to bring home the carnage. Coherence and characters will have to wait at least another 28 months or so for the inevitable third chapter.
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