Awful

Rating: 4/10 (16 May 2007)

When I heard that this film was in production, I knew it would be awful. Then I saw the trailers and thought that maybe there was a glimmer of hope. I was wrong. The plot has such gargantuan holes in it that even the most die-hard horror fan couldn't gloss over them. An example of this is when the first infected human shows up and the US Army decides that the best thing to do with the 1,000 or so civilians that they are protecting, is to herd them all into one room in the basement and then leave them there un-guarded. Brilliant.
The infected are not zombies, but in this film seem to have developed their characteristics. Some are seen chopped in half (in an admittedly awesome way) and lying on the ground, squirming around and looking angry. Problem is these never were zombies in terms of them being undead, so wounds like this should finish them off as they would a normal person. They also seem to spend a lot more time biting people than they did in the first film, again alluding that they are conventional zombies, which they are not.
This film lacks any of the charm or wit of it's predecessor and becomes just another poorly thought out horror/action film. The violence as well is pretty disgusting at some points. The eye-squashing move from the original returns, but this time is shown in a series of brutal close-ups, with blood oozing all over the place. Now I'm not squeamish, and I don't mind violence in films, but in this context I thought it was way over the top and unnecessarily grim.
One infected is focused on as the "bad guy" in this movie. The fact that he survives for he final encounter is another gaping plot hole, as he must have had to chase the heroes through London whilst it was being napalmed, nerve gassed, and with the heroes in a car at one point. Yet he still manages to follow them the whole way.
I give it 4/10, maybe bump it up to 5 for the scene where they escape being gunned down by a US Army helicopter in a Volvo.