Very, very good.

Rating: 9/10 (24 February 2012)

I was actually very pleasantly surprised by this movie. I loved the first one, and expected the worst from a sequel featuring an American-led NATO force, as I though the first one was perfect as it was (especially the directors cut). I steered clear of it for a few years, before coming across it one sleepless night on E4. And I LOVED it! I'm not even that big on zombie films but this one just had me hooked, start to end. I was very pleased to see that Boyle had been involved in producing it and I actually felt Fresnadillo maintained the gritty feel of the first film. The second half was perhaps a little video-game-ish at times, but still chilling and bleak (and Jeremy Renner was particularly watchable - it was so sad when he died but then again, he did get a great send off). There were three tiny things that I kind of disliked:
1) I love Robert Carlyle, but did zombie-Don have to chase his kids all across London? I thought it was a nice touch that he kind of recognised them, but it would have been better if he hadn't survived the firebombing. His role was done by then. He should have just been used to get the infection from his wife, spread it amongst the people crowed in that rooms for 'their protection' (that was such a great scene) and...after that his character had no more use.Any other of the infected could have been in the underground with the kids and Scarlett: even an infected Scarlett could have been the one to bite Andy. I thought it was a little too much.
2) The Helicopter blades being used to slice up the infected. Couldn't Flynn's helicopter just had some machine guns on it somewhere? This was the only part of the movie that I almost rolled my eyes at.
3) The last...30/60 seconds. The ending didn't RUIN the movie for me, but at the same time, it would have been much, much more interesting to finish it when the screen blacks out after a glimpse of Andy looking out of the helicopter. Or it could have ended after that shot of the abandoned helicopter. But the Eiffel tower shot was a bit silly. I won't mind so much if they make a third one, because that scene's almost necessary for setting it up, but if there is no third one, the series ends on a weak note.
But those were the only issues I had with the film. It was so much better than I expected it to be and still managed to be original, gripping and dark. 9/10