Hopeless in Loundon

Rating: 8/10 (27 October 2007)

First off i want to explain my love for the first one.
It's very rare that i'm emotionally involved in a film. 28 days took me by surprise. I genuinely cared whether the characters lived or died. Yes for once i wasn't hoping the zombies/infected eat the people, and make it gory. The movie also was like watching how savage humanity is and our struggle for survival. Though the ending i saw was a happy bullshit ending, i had the opportunity to see the other 2 ending which were nihilistic. All in all it did everything right. The atmosphere, the score...man the score was very emotional, the characters and the infected are some of the most savage creatures every!!! The sequel tried to recapture that and more. and does it succeed? well.... The movie is about how America has repopulated London after all the infected has died of starvation. But a survivor is found and all hell breaks loose. Some reviewers often called this aliens to days alien. i disagree. though its action packed and has ten times the infected...i don't think thats a fair comparison. I do think this movie explains a lot. The new ideas they introduced into the franchise is even more frightening then the originals.
The movie can be looked at as a metaphor for the Iraq war or any war America has had in the past. We see them going into a foreign country trying to show them how to live and it back firing horribly. With a code red order sent down..which is reminiscing of the shock and awesome performance we got to witness in the early stages of the now 4 year Iraq war, we see an unspeakable but yet very understandable act deployed. This only adds to the horror which seems relentless once it gets going.
The issue i had with this movie was it didn't capture the bleakness of the original. Though it seemed like there's no hope of repopulating London, the movie wasn't as atmospheric as the original. Here we see countless amounts of soldiers on buildings in a empty London..placed there for safety..think 911..when they aren't doing anything but you feel safe to know they are there. Only the insane and highly replay ably intro captures the true essence of the first film. Now i'm not saying this isn't good i'm saying that one was a better film. The first was filmed with a digital camera, gave it a grainy look. This is filmed and scored like a big budget flick. which its probably what it was but...what made the original that much better was it seemed real...it was damn depressing..and the score was haunting and emotional. It was one of those movies you'd stumble across in a video store and it scared the hell of you.
I liked it...watched 3 times before rendering a verdict. I don't think a sequel is necessary.