Mayor of Zombiebridge

Rating: 6/10 (14 May 2007)

First thing that needs saying is that this was much much much better than the average sequel, but no not as good as the original.
Do yourself a good turn: go rent "The Claim" by Michael Winterbottom, based on "The Mayor of Casterbridge" by Thomas Hardy and you'll see exactly how sly the overall template of this story is.
Fresnadillo does not quite equal his fascinating "Intacto" but his stuff is sure worth watching and will undoubtedly stay that way.
Nice to see Stringer Bell and Augustus Hill, Danny Boyle must watch HBO.
Okay, the compliments out of the way, there are so many coincidences in this movie and the mechanics so poorly fumbled (not the cinematics, those are uniformly excellent) that it was hard to appreciate the morality play. Is there some sort of zombie telepathic APB? Why would they all know to go to Regent's Park? How could Robert Carlyle follow a speeding Volvo all around London? If the mother is infected and not cleared from quarantine yet would she maybe have 1 guard? Why would they put all of the civilians in an area that isn't actually secure? It's all lazy plot mechanics.
Now. I know everyone has fun with the topical story: nuclear family, US army, blah blah blah. Look further into it. If these two stupid kids never left the safe zone the mother never would have been found and the virus would be over. If the good people trying to get a cure for the virus figured out they were allowing the kid to bring the virus to the outside world, the virus would be over. It's almost like the Lars von Trier film "Epidemic" where a doctor goes around trying to fight a plague that he is carrying around with him unknowingly. A little compassion goes a long way to ending the world. People have been asking on here: would you kill 10 people to save 1000? Well would you kill 10 to save 1? If these people accepted that they should be purged for the safety of humanity, humanity wouldn't die. And the girl (Ms. Poots, teehee) knows her brother has an infection that can cause what she's seen but she doesn't want to admit her worldview is flawed, her selfishness dooms the world.
The two kids are completely selfish and stupid, they get person after person killed and don't care a whit, then they get everyone killed and don't care. They are reunited with their father and don't really care (and call him a janitor), they blame him for their mother without knowing one way or another just because they're brats. I guess it's appropriate these are the people that would be the cause of the apocalypse.
Now that's over: having Carlyle become a zombie then was really excellent and shocking. Way to go.
Problem with this one is that the zombies in Romero still have some kind of inner world beyond zombiehood and these ones don't (and screw you, they're zombies). So you can't really have Muggleston (is that his real name?) grow up to be the Dune Zombie Messiah in 28 months later, they don't really have the potential; but it's still cool that they run.
Just like in the Spielberg "War of the Worlds" it is always interesting to see our view of exactly how quickly everything everywhere could go to hell.