Good, but nearly undone by a lazy and predictable script

Rating: 6/10 (28 May 2007)

Thank Christ!
"28 Weeks Later" is a modern, and un-ironic for a change, horror film. As fast, kinetic, intense and violent as "28 Days Later". Also bloody. Very bloody. Some absolutely brilliant set pieces. (The opening sequence, where an almost middle class dinner party rapidly turns into a blood bath, and Robert Carlyle's frantic flight, leaving his wife to her fate. Robert Carlyle's (again - I really like him) transformation from clean to infected and his subsequent rage filled attack on his wife. The moment when the snipers are told to "kill everything that moves". The fire bombing of the Isle Of Dogs. A helicopter as an up close and personal attack vehicle. The chemical weapon attack.) Good stuff, but "28 Weeks Later" is undone somewhat by a lazy and predictable script, way too dependant on coincidence. Examples.
Two children can avoid detection by the U.S. army, break out of a secure cordon around the Isle Of Dogs, find a motorbike to go back to where they used to live. Then they find their Mother, still alive.
What?
Robert Carlyle is a trusted caretaker for the U.S. army. Trusted enough, apparently, to have a high enough security clearance to be able to get into a medical facility, where the U.S. army scientists are investigating the rage virus, to visit his wife who is in isolation and is strapped down.
Eh?
Or the worst thing. Robert Carlyle as super infected man! He keeps popping up like a jack-in-the-box, as his children's nemesis of choice, long after he should have disappeared into the background. One of a thousand infected getting shot, burned or gassed by the U.S. army.
Final thing.
The climatic sequence under Wembley Stadium, in apparent pitch black, was terribly put together. Maybe it was just me, but I had no idea what was going on. Awful.
I don't suppose I cared very much about any of the characters, either.
Lots of criticisms, there, but I liked "28 Weeks Later" enough. I did. It is a true rush of a movie, it just isn't as good as "28 Days Later". Such a shame. Maybe the next film (trust me, a European set movie "28 Months Later" must be on the cards) will be better. Maybe it will become a true saga and we will get sci-fi epic "28 Years Later" a couple of years down the line? That would be interesting.