dystopia with a happy end...?

Rating: 7/10 (18 September 2007)

The plot evolves around a family of four; father, mother, daughter and son who desperately fight for survival in the post-infectious age.
As you may know the infected on mainland Britain dies of starvation after a while and society is then being rebuilt with the help of forces from USA. Here you have the first really controversial moments in the movie as they (the American soldiers) are being portrayed as trigger-happy brutes with no respect of the potential danger that surrounds them. This is tiresome to watch and also a to often used cliché in other movies; the bragging soldier with his big gun who dies a violent and unexpected (to himself) death. I don't necessarily agree with other reviews that points out that this could be seen as a political comment on the behavior of US forces around the world.
One of the things that I like the most about modern zombie-movies is the sense of dysphoria portrayed. The whole atmosphere should be permeated by terror and fear of total annihilation of the human race. One by one the protagonist should die, your friends and family should turn against you and survival should only be possible for a limited period; a modern dystopia.
In my view zombie-movies should explore the human reactions to these kind of extreme life-conditions: Fear, survival-instinct, heroism, coward-ism, traumatization etc. There really shouldn't be a happy end nor shouldn't the protagonists destinies be decided upon some sort of higher justice (eg the coward dies the most brutal death and the hero gets away in the end) and there shouldn't be a big show-down in the end to settle the score. Realism should be favored instead. And I really think that the movie fails here on several accounts.
I am not even sure that the word "zombie" is being used in "28 weeks later" but never the less the resemblance to older zombie movies is strong. There is no more talk about superstitious explanations like "no more room in hell" or voodooism but instead we deal with virus and genetics which only adds to the realism (I think that every age has it own fear-phenomena and that we in our time are really, really afraid of virus-attack). We don't have to shoot the infected in the head anymore to kill them which again in some way adds to the realism and thereby makes it easier for us to identify with the protagonist.
28 weeks later works well on several levels given the genre its in but it still has some major flaws. In order for the story to develop the protagonist does some really stupid things which is very annoying to watch and which again makes it difficult to empathize with them. They take some big risks at certain points which they don't have to take. For me one of the important aspects of being a screen-writer is to make the persons portrayed believable which I don't think is entirely achieved in this movie.
Another thing that was annoying was the lack of fear or alertness in some specific situations. I am thinking in particular of the scene where the children and some other survivors pause at some sort of fair-ground. They seem so relaxed and off guard like they were on some Sunday trip.
All in all I would still recommend it to anyone who likes to be taken away into a dark and sinister world for 90 minutes.