Run-of-the-mill sequel, which is not unexpected

Rating: Null/10 (11 May 2007)

"28 weeks later" is just another of those sequels that do not live up to your expectations, unless you have seen enough to learn to curb your expectations, as I did.
Those who have experienced the breadth of imaginative landscape of "28 days later" but have forgotten a lot of it can perhaps use a reminder:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/usercomments-616
Those who have not seen "28 days later" need nothing more than a very brief background that a strange virus coming out of a lab test gone wrong turns people into zombies in London. While "28 days later", after starting with this plot, leaves it behind as nothing more than a vague backdrop and takes flight into a world of creative imagination, showing you things, one after another, that surprise, delight and trouble, "28 weeks later" picks up the zombie plot, period, and gives us a run-of-the-mill zombie thriller. It is not bad, mind you, just far from being good.
I wouldn't waste time with a plot summary  it's simple and predictable, often two or three steps ahead. Several sequences (mostly scenes of chases) have a distinct music video flavour and are quite enjoyable. The scares, however, if there really are any, are quite incompetent, relying on sudden loud sounds and blood, blood and more blood. If you really insist on sub-texts, you could look at mass hysteria getting out of control and heavy-handed military counter-measure.
The unfamiliar (but not entirely unrecognizable) British cast is at least a welcome change from all-too-familiar Hollywood faces. A delightful surprise is seeing, in an unfortunately anything-but-delightful role, Catherine McCormack who was such a captivating beauty, playing Murron MacClannough in "Braveheart" (Mel Gibson's short-lived young bride).