Answering the negative reviews

Rating: 9/10 (20 May 2008)

Having read a number of the negative reviews here there seems to be a couple of points which are continually raised. The first is the shaky camera work. Which I do agree can be a gimmick and pointless an attempt to make the movie seem fresh and new whereas really its just ripping off what another director has done before, this is in some films. This is a roller-coaster ride of a film. When the camera is strapped to the side of someone sprinting away from the infected, you are too. Therefore in this movie I feel it is entirely appropriate and adds to the viewers experience and immersion in the instant of what is happening.
The second point that negative reviews raise are plot holes. Now there are a few small ones if you wish to watch the movie time and time again going through it with a tooth comb. But the ones that are raised by the negative reviews I would say are not plot holes. First I should say that this movie has within it a discussion around combat and events happening, still happening in Iraq. Taking this into account the infected become the 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighters' who can be confused among the civilians. As with the Iraq parallel it is hard to tell them apart from 15,000 ft or through a hazy night scope at 300m. The film tries to explain why Iraq is such a mess, why the situation is so complex and untenable. The mistakes that the soldiers the characters and the powers that be make in this movie are not designed to help advance the plot, I think the plot (the journey of the children to their escape) was bent to fit these events. And these mistakes I believe mirror the colossal mistakes which have happened in Iraq. The pilot, the sniper, seeing a group of unidentified people and being ordered to kill them, they're terrorists, they're infected.
Why repopulated London? Why fly coca cola reps out to the green zone in Baghdad? These are the points I feel the movie was trying to put across. And I believe the movie is far better for it. I feel that this equals the first movies quality and drive, but it does this in a more dangerous way. By massively increasing the scale to the real time fate of a city rather than the small band in the first movie.