A Nice Complement To The Original

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2007)

Twenty Eight Days Later became the cult smash of 2003 because of its radical departure from what made up the quintessential "Zombie" film. Instead of using a wide 2.85 ratio with long shots, it resorted to a more intimate scope with quick and jerky movement. Instead of comedic clichés and over-the top violence, there was intense fear and realistic gore. The film succeeds on many levels in its theatricality and style, but on others such as plot, it fails to enthrall the audience and feel like a shell, for what we all truly want to see on the screen.
After Danny Boyle left the film to do Sunshine, Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo stepped in. Fresnadillo incorporated much more flair into the film than its predecessor. The camera transforms London into a labyrinth of modern buildings and steel with sweeping crane shots, pans, and fast cuts. It lulls the audience into a sense of peace and security with allusions to the chaos that is soon to follow.
Unlike most of the previous film, Twenty Eight Week Later benefits due to the clash between the modern and the devastation. In Days it is the desolation of the countryside that contributes to the edginess of the film; here it is the exact opposite. Also, in Days the destruction has already happened, and the audience is catapulted immediately into the action and chaos of the Rage Virus. In Weeks, we are obviously aware that these events will happen (we wouldn't have a movie if they didn't, right?) but it's the how, when, where, and why that captivate us.
The place where the film stumbles is the plot. Clearly Fresnadillo's intentions were not to hit it out of the ball-park in complexity or inventiveness, but there are holesnot necessarily plot holes, but weak spots in the script where one has to question the logic behind decisions made. Obviously it creates frustration within the audience which was most likely Fresnadillo's intention, but there is a line that needs to be drawn between intentional creation of frustration and poor script writing.
The political themes in the film are very broad and much more unnoticeable than mentioned elsewhere. There is that very present "Destroy everything to eliminate the few" theme that perhaps can be construed by some as American foreign policy but this implication is very broad, and I sincerely doubt the filmmakers of a zombie film had that on the brain. Needless to say, it is slightly visible and is food for thought.
The film also takes some cheap shots in the horror department. This is not to say that this is the only film that has succumbed to that temptationmost modern horror films build upon the notion that their audience likes some throw away scares. However, there are too many of these and it becomes tiring for the audience as well as detrimental to the pacing of the film. It has its gore as well, but nothing incredibly shocking or grotesque is seen (i.e. torture shockers like Saw and Hostel.) Not all is lost because of the film's plot or shock tactics. Throughout the film there are many creative scenes, (The scene in the subway is wonderfully done and the scene with the helicopter is absolutely shocking.) The blaring rock music juxtaposed with escape scenes (such as with Robert Carlyle in the beginning) assaults the audience's ears creating a great tension that the audience desperately seeks to relieve.
All in all, Twenty Eight Weeks Later is a worthy addition to its extremely successful predecessor. What makes it successful is the 'give and take' this film experiences in relation to the original. What one film does, the other seeks to balance by doing the opposite. They complement each other perfectly similar to the success shared by the 'Alien and Aliens' films twenty years ago. In this summer of sequels and more, this is one film that definitely holds its weight against the slough of other films that will undoubtedly not turn out to be as successful.